by Lucia Berlin
First published 2015
Berlin's characters work night shifts at hospitals, clean houses for wealthy families, and raise children alone in desert towns. A woman operates a switchboard while navigating her own tangled relationships. Another hitchhikes through the Southwest, searching for something she cannot name. Mothers struggle to pay rent while their children play in parking lots outside liquor stores. These women move through Laundromats where conversations reveal hidden sorrows, through halfway houses where recovery feels both possible and impossibly distant. Berlin writes about people society overlooks, finding humor in their daily battles and unexpected moments of connection. Her stories span thirty years of observation, moving from the Bay Area to Texas, from emergency rooms to church basements. The women she creates are neither heroes nor victims but something more complex. They make mistakes, tell lies, love imperfectly, and keep going. Berlin captures how ordinary moments can crack open to reveal what matters most.
Genres: fiction, short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, ordinary-people
Setting: Bay Area, Southwest, Texas
Period: 20th-century
406 pages · Hardcover · Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Content warnings: addiction, depression, mental-illness