A close reading of Raymond Carver's stories, interviews, essays, and letters explores aspects of his relationships with his father, his teacher John Gardner, and in particular his influential editor, Gordon Lish, as they relate to his writing and to his development as a writer. It is proposed that the internalization of aspects of these relationships, along with the collaborative and symbolizing process of authorship—providing both selfexposition and screen—helped Carver move beyond his need for subjugated masochistic attachment and forge a path toward greater creative autonomy.