Summary

The short story “Why, Honey?” by Raymond Carver takes the form of a letter sent by a mother to an anonymous receiver. The topic of the letter is the woman’s son, whom she fears greatly. The letter begins with the woman explaining that she is hiding and fearing the man her son has become. At the same time, the woman reveals that her son has become famous because she reads about his deeds in the newspapers.

The woman writes the anonymous receiver of the letter about her son’s childhood and about his tendency of lying. She describes an episode which indicates that her son and another boy have gruesomely killed the family cat, but the boy denied doing it. Then, the woman describes other episodes in which the boy lied, such as about the amount of...