I racconti di questa autrice esplorano le relazioni umane e la vita quotidiana con una lucidità penetrante che evita il giudizio. Il suo stile, spesso paragonato a quello di Čechov, cattura le sottili sfumature dell'esistenza umana. Attraverso racconti brevi magistralmente costruiti, svela le complessità della psiche umana e delle interazioni sociali. La sua influenza letteraria va ben oltre il suo successo commerciale, rendendola una figura significativa nel campo della narrativa breve.
In Where I Live Now, Berlin contemplates the human condition with a compassionate understanding. Berlin's vision is sometimes remorseful, sometimes resigned, always courageous. The elusive nature of happiness is a compelling theme here: the survivors in these stories--many of them society's marginal or excluded people, fighting alcohol or drug addiction, bearing emotional scars--recognize it all too well.
Twenty-three stories from a widely recognized master. Each will resonate, as questions of the human condition always do, in the heart of the reader.Lucia Berlin is widely recognized as a master of the short story. This collection captures distilled moments of crisis or epiphany, placing the protagonists in moments of stress or personal strain, and all told in an almost offhand, matter-of-fact voice.The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “Most of the stories in this collection are very short and very simple. They are set in the places Berlin knows Chile, Mexico, the Desert Southwest, and California, and they have the casual, straightforward, immediate, and intimate style that distinguishes her work. They are told in a conversational voice and they move with a swift and often lyrical economy. They capture and communicate moments of grace and cast a lovely, lazy light that lasts. Berlin is one of our finest writers and here she is at the height of her powers.”This is a collection for anyone who loves short stories or great writing of any kind.
Selected Stories
A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the Laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers and bad Christians. Readers will revel in this remarkable collection from a master of the form and wonder how they’d ever overlooked her in the first place.
The publication of A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin's dazzling collection of short stories, marked the rediscovery of a writer whose talent had gone unremarked by many. The incredible reaction to Lucia's writing - her ability to capture the beauty and ugliness that coexist in everyday lives, the extraordinary honesty and magnetism with which she draws on her own history to breathe life into her characters - included calls for her contribution to American literature to be as celebrated as that of Raymond Carver.Evening in Paradise is a careful selection from the remaining Berlin stories - a jewel box follow-up for Lucia Berlin's hungry fans.'Lucia Berlin's collection of short stories, A Manual for Cleaning Women, deserves all of the posthumous praise its author has received . . . Her work is being compared to Raymond Carver, for her similar oblique, colloquial style; her mordant humour; the recurrence of alcoholics; and her interest in the lives of working-class or marginalised people. But only Carver's very final stories share Berlin's eye for the sudden exaltation in ordinary lives, or her ability to shift the tone of an entire story with an unexpected sentence.' Sarah Churchwell, 'Best Books of 2015', Guardian
Lucia Berlin's "Welcome Home" features previously unpublished autobiographical sketches from her vibrant life, spanning from Alaska to Mexico. Her son Jeff Berlin enriches the narrative with photos and letters, showcasing her dazzling writing style, humor, and heartfelt reflections on the places and people she encountered.
»Jemand stirbt oder eine Liebe geht zu Ende und nichts wird aufgelöst, man bleibt einfach damit zurück«, hat Lucia Berlin über Anton Tschechow und seine Kunst des Erzählens mit offenem Ausgang einmal gesagt. So wenig wie ihr Vorbild richtet Lucia Berlin über ihre Figuren, so nah wie er zoomt sie das Leben heran: eine erste Liebe, eine Amour fou, scheiternde Ehen, kurze Affären. Immer wieder die Familie, vor allem die sterbende Schwester, aber auch der Kampf mit dem Alkohol, die Einsamkeit, das schlechte Gewissen, vor allem den Söhnen gegenüber. Lucia Berlins unsentimentaler, zugleich von tiefen Gefühlen geprägter Blick auf die Wechselfälle des Lebens und der dunkle, pointierte Humor machen diese Erzählerin so einzigartig und zeitlos modern.
Niemals aufgeben: ein Buch voller zweiter Chancen Alleinerziehende Mütter, Alkoholikerinnen auf Entzug, Haushaltshilfen, Krankenschwestern und Sekretärinnen – Lucia Berlin erzählt von unterprivilegierten Frauen, die um ein besseres Leben kämpfen. In Waschsalons, Cafés und Restaurants, Krankenhäusern und Arztpraxen zeigen sich die kleinen Wunder des Lebens oder entwickeln sich herzzerreißende Tragödien, denen die Autorin mal mit abgründigem Humor, dann wieder voller Melancholie, aber stets mit ergreifender Empathie auf den Grund geht. Unsentimental und unaufgeregt erkundet Lucia Berlin die Warteräume des Lebens und richtet ihren Blick nicht nur auf die schmutzigen Winkel, sondern auch auf die Sonnenstrahlen mitten im prosaischen Alltag.
