This is surely a masterpiece. Berlin has been compared to Carver as she portrays the lives of women who struggle with alcoholism, being a mum and an alcoholic, the reality of rehab programmes and the inability to put their lives together.
Berlin herself was an alcoholic and many of the events in the story echoe her life. Several characters and situations are repeated alongside the narrations, creating a continuity.
You know that with short stories collection there is tendency to have some very good ones and others quite bad. In the case of this book, the quality of the stories is consistent, displaying a world full of loneliness and desperation.
Lucia Berlin's narratives are truthful, thought-provoking and brutal. They shows the fragile conditions in which these women live, the violence in the atmosphere and the isolation that engulfs them: the alcoholic mums whose teenager boy hides the car keys so she cannot go to buy more drinks, the reality of children being taken away from their mothers because they are unable to take care of them, the anxiety and physical pain of the first days in rehab facilities, all this is masterfully showed by Berlin, a unique voice displaying the actualives of people dealing with alcoholism.
Ana Ovejero
mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com
instagram:ananbooks
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