CARVER COUNTRY : The World of Raymond Carver <i> Photographs by Bob Edelman, Introduction by Tess Gallagher (Scribner’s: $35; 159 pp.) </i>

The late Raymond Carver’s short stories have had an enormous impact upon the literature of our time and the words he chose to express himself still seem irrefutable and inevitable, nothing unfelt or impure. Certainly in the history of the American short story he deserves consideration alongside Fitzgerald, Hemingway, John Cheever or anyone you care to name. Stories of losers, stories of lower-middle-class family life gone bad; stories of alcoholism and divorce.

This book consists of excerpts from some of the stories, letters, a few poems--illustrated by the black-and-white photos of Bob Edelman, taken in Yakima and other haunts of Carver’s life. The tone of the text may be a little over worshipful, but why not? It’s like an addendum to a biography sure to follow. Nothing new, but the book presents a suitably downbeat evocation of Carver’s life and milieu.