So Much Water So Close To Home
I couldn’t find my book, so I read it on the internet
All human beings have needs. The most basic ones are the natural, physical conditions required to stay alive. However there are other needs that are just as important to make the human mind work properly. Love and care are concepts deeply essential to the life of any person. If these psychological needs are not fulfilled throughout a persons lifetime it can result in different sorts of mental distortions.

The short story “So Much Water So Close To Home” is written by the American minimalist Raymond Carver and was first published in 1974. The action takes place in the town of Pasco and by the Naches River in the western state of Washington. Clair and Stuart are living together in a steady seeming marriage. Their life together with their son Dean passes regularly until Stuart and his three friends during their yearly fishing trip to the Naches River find the dead body of a young girl in the river. The conflict that arises takes their relationship out on a side track and reveals that their mutual communication is not sufficient to cope with anything out of the ordinary. Stuart is introvert, does not want to talk about the dead girl and avoids Clair’s attempts to make contact: “He chews, arms on the table, and stares at something across the room. He looks at me and looks away.” (p. 1 lines 2-3). When the men found the girl floating in the river they did nothing for the first couple of days but to make sure she could not drift away. They went on fishing, drinking, playing cards and telling stories. They phoned the sheriff on their way home and thought that was all they could possibly have done in this matter. They could not see why a dead girl should interrupt their men’s trip. Stuart does not wish to tell his wife about what have happened, and when he has to do so because of calls from the press he feels that she judges him when she wants to talk about it. He claims that he has done nothing wrong by not doing something about the dead body the moment they found it, and he gets mad by any reference to the occurrence: ““Why did you have to go miles away?” “Don’t rile me,” He says” (p. 4 lines 24-25). It would have been easy for Stuart to make up some explanation for his wife about why fishing in the Naches River contrary to the river near their home is better this time of year. However, he knows that everything could have been avoided if it was not for him and his friends need to be pure males away from family and responsibility. Clair is very affected by what has happened. Because Stuart refuses to talk it all over with her she cannot let go of the thought of it. Her mind keeps circling around dead bodies in rivers. She remembers that a girl was killed and thrown in the Cle Elum River when she was a child. She even imagines herself as the victim of such a crime: “I look at the creek. I’m right in it, eyes open, face down, staring at the moss on the bottom, dead.” (p. 4 lines 35-36). Stuarts rejection of her attempt of contact frustrates her, and his way of relating to the discovery of the dead girl makes her disgusted by him: “… lying on the far side of the bad away from his hairy legs” (p. 5 lines 8-9). She starts avoiding contact too, and the communication is definitively lost. Clair decides to go to the girl’s funeral because she cannot get her of her mind. On her way through the mountains a man in a car comes up behind her. She tries to make him pass by continuously slowing down and speeding up. The man passes, but comes back to see if Clair is alright. She, however, gets scared and fears that he is going to rape her: “He looks at my breasts, my legs. I can tell what he’s doing” (p. 7 lines 10-11). After the funeral she talks with an elderly lady who tells her that the killer has been caught in the town. Yet Clair is not convinced: “They have friends, these killers. You can’t tell.” (p. 7 line 32). They have friends, or they have helpers. For what Stuart and his friends did in the mountains was to help the killer get out of town by giving him time before reporting the murder. Back home Clair’s paranoia shows again in a moment where she thinks something has happened to her son. Stuart is in the kitchen with a glass of whiskey. He wants to sort things out: “I think I know what you need.” (p. 8 lines 8-9). He starts to take of her clothes, while Clair hears running water in her head. She is drowning in this relationship as in a cold river. There is nothing for her to grasp, no help or care. Stuart cannot give her anything but sex, and somehow Clair now associates that with love which makes her incapable of seeking the mental support and care she really needs.