Her father is blasé about the event, saying, “She got a hold of some sleeping pills, that’s all. I have ruined you and have nearly killed my best horse.” When Laura returns home, she comes to understand her mother has attempted suicide. Her awe at his family’s lifestyle and admiration for his self-assurance splinters into confusion and betrayal he tells her, “I’m not angry with you, mi vida. “Andado” describes a girl named Laura’s visit to a wealthy family’s ranch and her seduction by a man her father’s age. Unlike A Manual for Cleaning Women, the 2015 collection that brought Berlin to posthumous international acclaim, Evening in Paradise closely mirrors the chronology of the author’s life, beginning with stories of a carefree girlhood set in west Texas and a privileged adolescence in Santiago, Chile. What didn’t faithful readers of Berlin already know about her life? What could she accomplish with narrative that wasn’t already on display? As it turns out, a great deal. So when it was announced that Evening in Paradise, Berlin’s second story collection to publish since her death in 2004, would be accompanied by a memoir, Welcome Home, the news brought both excitement and the concerning possibility of redundancy. Her autofiction is so compelling, so alive, and so, well, autobiographical, that it can be difficult to separate the Marias, Maggies, Mayas, Lauras, and Lisas who populate Berlin’s work from the author herself-like untangling a necklace with a straight pin. Reading Lucia Berlin has always been, at least to this reader, an experience of immersion in the author’s life.
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