Where I Live Now

The New York Times–bestselling author of So Long contemplates the human condition in this short story collection for fans of Grace Paley & Alice Munro. The elusive nature of happiness is a compelling theme in Where I Live Now. The survivors in these stories—many of them society's marginal or excluded people, fighting alcohol or drug addiction, bearing emotional scars—recognize it all too well. They mourn the lost dreams of youth, the roads not taken. They suffer the damage life inflicts: the ache of loneliness, the pain of separation, the fear of death. Set mainly in Los Angeles, Lucia Berlin’s gritty working-class stories bridge the gap between the Americas—rich and poor, North and South, Anglo and Hispanic. While her style has been compared to Raymond Carver’s, and her dream- and drink-addicted characters to Richard Yates’s, her fictional territory and fatalistic humor are hers alone. Praise for Where I Live Now “Berlin’s literary model is Chekhov, but there are extra-literary models too, including the extended jazz solo, with its surges, convolutions, and asides. This is writing of a very high order.” —August Kleinzahler, London Review of Books “This remarkable collection occasionally put me in mind of Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, with its sweep of American origins and places. Berlin is our Scheherazade, continually surprising her readers with a startling variety of voices, vividly drawn characters, and settings alive with sight and sound.” —Barbara Barnard, American Book Review “Berlin is marvelously successful, placing her memorable characters in gripping situations, plumbing their messed-up lives for pathos and allowing us to see deeply into their souls.” —Publishers Weekly