They are all trying to make it, or just trying to get by, and what a mess that creates, but it’s a mess her stories embrace wholeheartedly. These 22 stories show her startling range and unwavering devotion to remaining open, refusing to judge any of her characters, whether delinquent, conniving, or alcoholic.
It is a small, but worthwhile, consolation that Berlin has found a readership 10 years after her death - an imperfect and bittersweet success, not unlike many of the pieces in this latest collection. That her work went unheralded during her lifetime has numerous likely reasons: sexism, no novels (a grave sin in some publishing circles), alcoholism, and a career with smaller presses. Considered together, the two collections leave little doubt she is one of the greatest American short story writers of the 20th century. Evening in Paradise is an essential piece of Berlin's oeuvre, a jewel-box follow-up for new and old fans.IT IS HARD to read Lucia Berlin’s Evening in Paradise: More Stories, which is every bit as generous and perceptive as A Manual for Cleaning Women, and not feel some sense of frustration or exasperation at the fact that Berlin was not more widely read during her lifetime. From Texas to Chile, Mexico to New York City, Berlin finds beauty in the darkest places and darkness in the seemingly pristine. Evening in Paradise is a careful selection from Berlin's remaining stories-twenty-two gems that showcase the gritty glamour that made readers fall in love with her. The book's author, Lucia Berlin, earned comparisons to Raymond Carver, Grace Paley, Alice Munro, and Anton Chekhov. It was a New York Times bestseller the paper's Book Review named it one of the Ten Best Books of 2015 and NPR, Time, Entertainment Weekly, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and other outlets gave the book rave reviews. In 2015, Farrar, Straus and Giroux published A Manual for Cleaning Women, a posthumous story collection by a relatively unknown writer, to wild, widespread acclaim. A collection of previously uncompiled stories from the short-story master and literary sensation Lucia Berlin
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