Publishers Weekly
09/12/2022
Livingston (Owls Don’t Have to Mean Death) delivers a revealing collection of letters between short story writer Lucia Berlin (1936–2004) and poet and lyricist Kenward Elmslie (1929–2022). Their correspondence began in 1994 after they attended Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program as visiting writers, and ended a decade later when Berlin died of lung cancer. In their correspondence, the writers are candid about their insecurities regarding their works (in one instance, Berlin admits she’s nervous about writing a short story inspired by a real love affair with a 17-year-old student when she was 35) and their personal lives (Elmslie frequently mentions his lover Joe Brainard, who died of AIDS and inspired Elmslie’s play Postcards on Parade), and offer book recommendations (Berlin praises Alice Notley, Elmslie references Chekhov). As a whole, their correspondence makes for an intimate, touching portrait of a friendship, one bound by a love of literature. Especially powerful is one note in which Berlin reflects on Elmslie’s strengths as a writer, praising his style, which “shines” as much as Flaubert’s: “Your letters have such history in them, valuable information about musicals, poetry, writers.... They should be published.” The result is a fine tribute to the careers and lives of two writers. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
"Conversational, unsensational, ironic, attuned to the absurd."—Times Literary Supplement
"An intimate, touching portrait of a friendship, one bound by a love of literature."—Publishers Weekly
"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, author of Essays One and Essays Two: On Proust, Translation, Foreign Languages, and The City of Arles
"More than a delightful record of a unique literary friendship, more than a chronicle of how Lucia and Kenward negotiated distance, patronage, moodiness, and the volatility of two artistic temperaments, Love, Loosha is a splendid treatise on aging out of lives in which decisions were made for pleasure and art more than for practicality or stability. A luscious and lyric counter argument to the dangers of a life lived in pursuit of beauty. Brava. Bravo."—Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country
"These letters read like a literary love affair between two brilliant writers who aim to delight, entertain, and confide in each other. What Berlin says of Elmslie's side of the correspondence is true of both: 'Beautiful writing, good gossip, funny stories. . . . You and I have known remarkable people.'"—Jennifer Dunbar Dorn, editor of Collected Poems: Edward Dorn
