[atombender]

Also worth mentioning that the title was made up by Carver's editor Gordon Lish, who significantly altered the story (originally called Beginners). Lish made relatively extensive changes to many of Carver's stories, and is widely accepted as having improved them, though not everyone agrees.

[Jun8]

Great point! Lish was a tight controller who was universally liked, to say the least. He’s generally insufferable (judge for yourself don’t this PM interview: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6423/the-art-of-ed....) A sexier version of Maxwell Perkins with better hair, perhaps? Yet he did teach writing and edited well.