SOURCE: Bumpus, Jerry. “Gut Shot.” American Book Review 4, no. 2 (January 1982): 8.

In the following review, Bumpus discusses the dominant themes of the stories in What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.

Like the buck in “The Calm,” people in Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love are still on their feet, though mortally wounded. “It was a gut shot. It just like stuns him. So he drops his head and begins this trembling. He trembles all over. … So I shot again but missed. Then old Mr. Buck moves back into the brush. But now, by God, he doesn't have any oompf left in him. … I'd rammed one right in his guts.” He doesn't track down and finish off the buck, but in the other 16 stories there is no one to blame for all the pain. The suffering which people inflict upon each other...