Where the heart is

摘要

IN 2015,11 years after her death, Lucia Berlin was rediscovered. The posthumous publication of "A Manual for Cleaning Women", a collection of finely crafted short stories about everyday trials, won widespread acclaim for a writer who had been largely overlooked during her lifetime.That life was eventful. Born in Alaska in 1936, she spent her early childhood in a succession of mining camps and towns in Idaho, Kentucky and Montana, and her teenage years in Chile. This nomadic lifestyle continued into adulthood. She studied in Albuquerque, moved to New York, and in 1960 eloped to Mexico. She wrote fitfully throughout the following decades in California and Colorado while juggling a series of jobs, bringing up four sons, battling alcoholism and contending with disability.