Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?

1976 short story collection by Raymond Carver

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (1976) was the first major press short story collection by American writer Raymond Carver. Described by contemporary critics as a foundational text of minimalist fiction, its stories offered an incisive and influential telling of disenchantment in the mid century American working class.

A waitress recounts a story to her friend, about "the fattest person I have ever seen," who comes into the diner where she works and orders a procession of dishes in a polite and self deprecatory manner. The waitress notices his strange manner of speaking, commenting positively on every aspect of the massive meal. She describes the physical struggle of the fat man, his "puffing" and overheating. After recounting the events at the dinner, the waitress tells her friend how she tried to explain to her partner, Rudy, that "he is fat but that is not the whole story". The story ends on a note of anticipation, with the waitress thinking to herself: "It is August./ My life is going to change. I feel it."

A "happy couple" who feel life has passed by are asked to feed their neighbors' cat while they are away. As he is in the apartment across the hall, the husband (Bill) begins to enjoy the voyeuristic experience of exploring his neighbors' things, sampling the food in the fridge, and even trying on their clothes. After the wife (Arlene) spends an absent minded hour in her neighbors' home, she returns to tell Bill that she has found some pictures he should see. "Maybe they won't come back", she says, as they cross the hall together. Before they can enter the apartment, however, Arlene realises that she has left the key inside their flat, and the door handle will now not turn: locked.

After supper, a couple watch through the window as their neighbor walks round the side of his house to spy on his own wife as she undresses. They seem puzzled at the incident, that has been happening "one out of every two to three nights" for the last three months. The man showers, as the woman prepares food for a late night snack, telling her partner that would call the cops on anyone who looked in at her while she was undressing. As she scrapes waste food into the garbage, she sees a stream of ants coming from underneath the sink, which she sprays with bug killer. When she goes to bed, the man is asleep already, and she imagines the ants again. She gets up, turns all the lights on, sprays all over the house, and looks out the window, aghast, saying " things I can't repeat."

Earl, a salesman between jobs, stops by one night at the 24 hour coffee shop where his wife, Doreen, works as a waitress. She is surprised to see him, but he reassures her and orders a coffee and sandwich. While he drinks his coffee, Earl overhears two men in business suits making crass comments about his wife. As she bends over to scoop ice cream, her skirt rides up and shows her thighs and girdle. Earl leaves and doesn't turn round when Doreen calls his name. The next day, Earl suggests Doreen think about going on a diet. Surprised, she agrees, and they research different diets and exercise. "Just quit eating for a few days, anyway", he tells her. She agrees to try. As she loses weight, people at work comment that Doreen is looking pale. Earl insists that she ignore them, however, saying "You don't have to live with them." One night after drinks, Earl goes back to the coffee shop and orders ice cream. As Doreen bends down, he asks the man next to him what he thinks, to the latter's shock. Another waitress notices Earl staring and asks Doreen who this is. "He's a salesman. He's my husband", she says.

A man (Arnold), who is sitting alone in his house while his wife is away, gets a call from a woman who appears to have the wrong number. Upon checking the number, she hesitates, and asks the man's name. He tells her to throw the number away. However, she tells him she thinks they should meet and calls back later to repeat the suggestion. The next afternoon, the man receives a call from the same woman, asking him to come over to see her sick daughter. Arnold takes a cab over, climbs the stairs to the address, and finds a young girl at the door, who lets him in. After some time, the woman returns home with groceries and asks Arnold if he is a doctor; he replies, he isn't. She makes him tea as he explains his confusion at the whole situation, after which he awkwardly kisses her, excuses himself, and leaves. When he arrives home, the phone rings and he hears his wife's voice, telling him "You don't sound like yourself."

A family stands around a baby in a basket, commenting on the child's expressions and doting on him. They talk about each of the baby's facial features in turn, trying to say who the baby looks like. "He doesn't look like anybody", a child says. Another child exclaims that the baby looks like Daddy, to which they ask "Who does Daddy look like?" Mary brings Carl a beer and tells him that she's had an interview for a job in Fairbanks, Alaska. They drive to the market and buy snacks, drive home again, and walk a block, to Helen and Jack's. Together they try out the pipe, Jack laughing about the fun they had "breaking it in" the night before. Chips, dip and cream soda are brought out, while they talk about Carl and Mary's possible move to Alaska. Not knowing anything about the place, they imagine growing giant cabbages or pumpkins. Helen thinks she remembers an "ice man" discovered there. Hearing a scratch at the door, she lets the cat in. The cat catches a mouse and eats it under the coffee table. "Look at her eyes", Mary says. "She high, all right." When they are all full, Mary and Carl say goodbye. Mary tells Carl as they are walking home that she needs to be "talked to, diverted tonight". Carl has a beer, and Mary takes a pill and goes to sleep, leaving Carl awake. In the dark hall he sees a pair of small eyes, and picks up one of his shoes to throw. Sitting up in bed, he waits for the animal to move again, or make "the slightest noise."

A man is out of work and living with his parents. He meets two women in a bar and offers them a ride in his parents' car in exchange for beer. After walking to his parents apartment, the man leaves the women outside and decides to stay in the apartment for the night.

A vacuum salesman demonstrator shows up at the house of an unemployed man and pointlessly goes through his sales pattern. He also sees work as a way to forget his troubles and to help forget his wife and children.

A night of insomnia.

Coming back from an office party, a couple are interrogated and insulted in a strange meeting with their landlord and his wife.

A man is driven crazy by the family dog and decides to get rid of it by dumping it on the edge of town. He soon changes his mind.

A mother writes a letter about her son.

At work the foreman suddenly dies, so everyone is sent home. At home one man fails to use the opportunity to have sex with his wife.

A couple comes to look at the woman's father's deserted place in the country. Maybe they will move there.

A man quits smoking. He calls round to the house of his son's friend, where a dispute is in progress over a missing bike. The man and the accused boy's father have a fight.

An unemployed man's wife goes out to sell their car and doesn't return until dawn.

A couple in a flashy restaurant seems to be trying to find out if they still have a future together. "I don't mind admitting I'm just a lowbrow."

The story of Ralph and Marian, two students who marry and become teachers. Ralph becomes obsessed with the idea that Marian was unfaithful to him once in the past. Eventually, Marian admits to the infidelity, and begs him to forgive her. Ralph gets drunk and feels his whole life changing once he finds out the truth. After storming out of the house and going to skid row, he loses money at a poker game and gets mugged. Upon returning home early the next morning, he finds evidence that Marian has been wracked with guilt and has been waiting for him to return. He wonders how to proceed if he decides to leave her and locks himself in the bathroom, rebuffing a clearly repentant Marian's begging and pleas for him to let her in so that she can talk to him. Eventually he leaves the bathroom and returns to their bedroom. Marian joins him, and after a while, he turns to her and marvels at the changes within him, implying that he now understands her, himself, and marriage better, and he will give her a second chance and reconcile with her.