Looking for Lucia in the San Francisco Bay Area

Flowers, thrillers and hot pink horseradish on the seventh stop of my Lucia Berlin research trip

Hello, friends —

This is my second newsletter in a week, so I’ll keep it brief, promise! If you’d like to read more about my forthcoming biography of Lucia Berlin, or about this literary road trip, my previous posts are all available here.

The seventh stop on my research trip was the San Francisco Bay Area, where Lucia lived from the early 1970s through to the early 1990s — the longest she spent in any geographical region, although she moved house frequently during that period, back and forth across the Oakland-Berkeley border.

Here I am at the end of my week in California, looking across the bay as I write.

First Impression

The Bay Area is where my passion for Lucia’s short fiction began. My father is from the East Bay, and while visiting my grandmother there in 2017, I saw A Manual for Cleaning Women on the ‘staff picks’ table in City Lights Bookstore and fell in love. I wrote a piece about that first encounter for Review 31, which you can read here.

It’s difficult to re-form a first impression of a place you’ve visited a lot — but something that always hits me about Berkeley, in particular, is how many flowers there are absolutely everywhere, seemingly at all times of year. I’m sure Lucia, who was a keen gardener, would have been able to tell me what they each were called. At least I could identify bougainvillea, which always makes me feel at home because it reminds me of Pakistan (where I moved in with my now-husband during the pandemic).

Best Discoveries (Plural)

I got to interview Lucia’s son David Berlin in person for the second time — obviously a massive privilege — and I also met several of her other close family members. Lucia’s daughter-in-law Josée Berlin (who is an equally wonderful artist and person), told me how Lucia’s talent for cooking intersected with her love of the colour pink, which is maybe my favourite anecdote of all time. It’s just so Lucia.

I heard so much about Lucia’s cooking during my time in Oakland and Berkeley, I’m tempted to include some of her recipes in my biography.

I also got to interview many of Lucia’s editors and friends, including Michael Wolfe, Steve Emerson, Alastair Johnston, Angelica Clark and Marcia Clay. Here’s Alastair, standing beside a few of his many gorgeous presses, including those he used to publish Lucia’s third collection, Safe & Sound.

Worst Discovery

Lucia’s Bay Area years were tough. This is the part of her life I find it most difficult to write about, mainly because of her struggles with alcohol addiction and her unhealthy romantic relationships. Engaging with all of this makes me very sad for her and for her family, and sometimes angry with her, too. This phase of my trip reminded me that research can be an emotional process — and usually that’s great, and my admiration and love for Lucia give me energy… But sometimes it’s really hard.

Please get in touch with recommendations of nonfiction writers who manage to write through, and with, complicated emotions — I could do with more role models for how to balance care, carefulness and accuracy when describing traumatic events!

Last Impression

By the end of my week of interviews, I had burned out. So when my husband Tom met me in San Francisco, we took a few days off together, which was exactly what I needed. We’re both Hitchcock fans, and we went to visit several of the locations from Vertigo. Here I am at Fort Point, where Madeleine falls into the Bay.

Of course I had to dress as a Hitchcock blonde for the day.

Final Thought

Rewatching Vertigo in our hotel room one evening, it occurred to me that not only is it a metaphor for Hitchcock’s creative process — remaking each female lead in the image of a fantasy blonde who never really existed — it’s also an articulation of bad biographical practice. As I pursue Lucia, I hope I’m able to present her to you all as she was, rather than rewriting her as the person I want her to be, like Vertigo’s Scottie does with Judy.

I’m now off to another country for the next stop of my Lucia Berlin research trip, so I’ll leave this here — but thank you, as ever, for reading this far! And for coming with me on my literary journey.

Nina

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