Zusatztext This never-before-published memoir and new collection are cause for jubilation. In part because they make it clear Berlin's gifts were vast! complex! and full of tonal warmths . . . Like Chekhov! Berlin was a beautiful framer of stories. Informationen zum Autor Lucia Berlin (1936-2004) worked brilliantly but sporadically throughout the 1960s! 1970s! and 1980s. Her stories are inspired by her early childhood in various Western mining towns; her glamorous teenage years in Santiago! Chile; three failed marriages; a lifelong problem with alcoholism; her years spent in Berkeley! New Mexico! and Mexico City; and the various jobs she held to support her writing and her four sons. Sober and writing steadily by the 1990s! she took a visiting writer's post at the University of Colorado in Boulder in 1994 and was soon promoted to associate professor. In 2001! in failing health! she moved to Southern California to be near her sons. She died in 2004 in Marina del Rey. Lucia's books include A Manual for Cleaning Women ! Welcome Home ! and Evening in Paradise . Klappentext 'Some short-story writers - Chekhov! Alice Munro! William Trevor - sidle up and tap you gently on the shoulder: Come! they murmur! sit down! listen to what I have to say. Lucia Berlin spins you around! knocks you down and grinds your face into the dirt. You will listen to me if I have to force you! her stories growl. But why would you make me do that! darlin'? . . . Berlin's stories are full of second chances . . . bits of life! chewed up and spat out like a wad of tobacco! bitter and rich.' New York Times Book Review# '[Berlin's] 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.' Sarah Churchwell! 'Best Books of 2015'! Guardian A portrait of the literary sensation and short-story master Lucia Berlin, told through a compilation of sketches, letters from, and photos of, friends and lovers. Zusammenfassung A portrait of the literary sensation and short-story master Lucia Berlin! told through a compilation of sketches! letters from! and photos of! friends and lovers. ...