A review by tom_f
Evening in Paradise by Lucia Berlin

5.0

Doesn’t bear casual commentary, really, since there’s so little artifice in Berlin’s own writing (it’s bracing to research her autobiographical interviews and find her repeating phrases and details from her ‘fiction’ verbatim). ‘Writing about’ is contra Berlin’s great project; this isn’t a look at life but rather life itself, lived, so much so that reading her work is the closest we’ll get to an adequate substitute for the real thing.