That's not love, and you know it," Mel said. Is love just empty talk, or the stuff of dreams offered by novels, poems and plays? WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK By Nathan Englander Alfred A. Knopf, $24.95, 224 pages. We can learn a ton about our man Mel and his wife Terri. â Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. âThe Difficulty in The Definition of Loveâ âWhat We Talk About When We Talk About Loveâ is a fictional narrative story that was written by Raymond Carver which reveals the truth behind the struggle humans face in an attempt to define love.