It would seem last night’s big Oscar winner, Birdman, a movie with an original script, would have little effect on books, but since its October release, it has caused Raymond Carver’s short story collection, What We Talk About When Talk About Love, (RH/Vintage) to increase in sales by 121%, reports Publishers Weekly. The movie, about an actor trying to score a creative comeback through a Broadway adaptation of the title story, includes several quotes from Carver, references to the title, as well as enactments of scenes from the story.

As a result, publisher RH/Vintage is releasing it as an ebook for the first time (there is a version currently available to libraries, but in Mandarin).

An original, unedited manuscript of the story, called Beginners, is also available in Raymond Carver: Collected Stories, (Penguin/Library of America). RH/Vintage will also release it as a standalone ebook in September.

Library holds are light so far. The movie has just been released on demand, so interest may grow.

UPDATE: The Telegraph writes about Carver’s influence on the director. saying the movie’s main character “could have flown right in from a 21st-century Carver story.”

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2015 at 1:13 pm and is filed under Books & Movies, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.