So Long by Lucia Berlin, 1992
The magic trick:
Seemingly simple, non-literary storytelling style
This one is longer and less funny than much of the previous work of Lucia Berlin that I’ve read. Neither is a bad thing, mind you.
The narrator here is staying with her terminally ill sister in Mexico. While there, does she reflect on her sister or their time together? Not much. The situation has her thinking more about herself and the potential regrets from throughout her own life, specifically the history of her relationship with her now-ex-husband.
True to the Berlin stories I am familiar with, the story is told very plainly. The narrator simply recalls events and puts them down on paper for us. It all feels so easy and non-literary. Of course, we know the appearance of such ease is an illusion.
And that’s quite a trick on Berlin’s part.
The selection:
I feel I have vanished. Last week in the Sonora market I was so tall, surrounded by dark Indians, many of them speaking in Nahuatl. Not only was I vanished, I was invisible. I mean for a long time I believed I wasn’t there at all.
Of course I have a self here, and a new family, new cats, new jokes. But I keep trying to remember who I was in English.
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