Overview

When Raymond Carver died in 1988, he was mourned as a national literary figure and shortlisted for the Pulitzer prize yet only ten years earlier he was marooned in a drying-out clinic. From his experiences, his alcoholism, bankruptcies, years spent in trailer parks and motel rooms, BBC 'Omnibus' shows how Carver produced stories and poems about the other side of the American dream - about the people whose dreams go belly-up.