Love, Loosha: The Letters of Lucia Berlin and Kenward Elmslie (Hardcover)

Authors: Lucia Berlin and Kenward Elmslie

Editor: Chip Livingston

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press (2022)

At the time of her death in 2004, Lucia Berlin was known as a brilliant writer of short stories, beloved by other writers but never achieving wide readership or acclaim. That changed in 2015 with the publication of A Manual for Cleaning Women, a collection of some of her best work. Almost overnight, Lucia Berlin became an international bestseller.

Love, Loosha is the extraordinary collection of letters between Lucia Berlin and her dear friend, the poet and Broadway lyricist Kenward Elmslie. Written between 1994 and 2004, their correspondence reveals the lives, work, and literary obsessions of two great American writers. Berlin and Elmslie discuss publishing and social trends, political correctness, and offending others and being offended. They gossip. They dish. They entertain.

Love, Loosha is an intimate conversation between two friends—one in which we are invited to participate, and one that will give fans of Lucia Berlin and Kenward Elmslie much pleasure and fresh insight into their lives and work.

"This book, the correspondence of two good writers and close friends, presents completely new material written very well and at the same time in a comfortable and natural style. The letters are personal, warm, witty, imaginative, detailed, sometimes lyrical, and, most compellingly, written with frankness, honesty, and good humor. Here, we can look 'behind' their art and witness what goes on in their day-to-day lives, how they experience moments of joy or well-being, how they suffer and try to laugh off their suffering. Above all, the compelling pleasure of the book is the opportunity to spend personal, intimate time in the company of these lively, intelligent, compassionate, and mutually loving people."

—Lydia Davis