Review of Evening in Paradise: More Stories by Lucia Berlin

Hard living. Child rearing. Drug use. Wild desert landscapes. New Mexico, Paris, Mexico. Small town dramas, rocky relationships. Kids playing in dangerous locales. “Hillbillies.” “Gaunt” people. A young girl’s coming of age. Violent men. The tyranny of life without money.

With her signature gorgeous prose, Berlin’s stories remain gloriously readable. In the same mode as Bolaño, with the recurrent point of view, she plumbs the depths of motherhood, womanhood, and other neighborhoods. An engaging storyteller. The density is well-suited for audiobook.

I am beginning to prefer her to Raymond Carver. She is American, in these stories, but heavily influenced by other cultures, especially Chile and the Southwest. She is remarkably consistent, yet does not repeat the same tone or arc throughout her stories. Plenty of variety.

Her writing is funny, socially engaged, bold, and emotional but not bogged down by melodrama. It is unpredictable. You get the sense these characters are all inspired by real people. They talk like real people.

An enchanting story about the narrator wandering the Louvre, full of wonderful observations. Simplicity. An unforgivable houseguest. A struggle inherent in every blessing. Perhaps she lived a hard life. The author found minimal success in life and posthumous fame. It’s all well and good to award her collections prizes after she is gone, but one can’t help but sympathize with her day-to-day grind.

I enjoyed myself, as I did with her previous collection and as I shall do with the next one. Only question is should I save it or read it right away? Probably start with A Manual for Cleaning Women, a slightly stronger conglomeration of ideas and phrases. Recommendable to all, but definitely not polite by any means.