The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

Another series of broken sentences, quotes, and headlines offers information about the greed of bond salesmen, changes in the ethics of Wall Street, the Gary Hart scandal, and the ascendency of cocaine. Other headlines reveal a widening trade gap, threats from Ronald Reagan toward Mikhail Gorbachev, and Reagan assuming responsibility for the Iran-Contra Affair. More describe a bullet train project in Florida seeking developers, young tech people with their own vocabulary, Biden admitting to mistakes in the past, and the Dow dropping 508 points in one day. Quotations also reveal debates over moral relativism and new Nike sneakers.

Ray Carver was a drinker, like his father, who worked as a saw filer at a lumber mill in the Yakima Valley in Washington. As a boy growing up in the 1940s and 50s, Ray loved to hunt and fish, but he also liked to read. He started a writing correspondence course from a school in Hollywood but ran out of money to finish it. His parents expected him to work at the sawmill, but he didn’t. He got a girl named Maryann pregnant and married her. He was 20, she was 18, and their daughter was born in 1957. They lived in various places throughout the West doing menial work.