No one will get what they want, but Berlin's vision is more knowing than bleak. Although the stories occasionally suffer from an overload of characters, they are very clear windows into lives pushed to their limits by drugs, alcohol, and abuse. It's actually the first part of her sentence that is the most telling. Berlin gives a sense that understanding is possible because she knows exactly what kinds of waves of alcoholism and disappointment have led her to where she lives now. While I Drive , Liza Wieland's third work of fiction and her second book of short stories, is a landscape defined by absences.
Children lose their fathers and mothers, parents their children.
Death is nearly always at the door. Characters are defined by whom they have lost, and ghosts are everywhere for surviving sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers. While I Drive is more a beautifully written articulation of how lives are molded by deeply felt attachments rather than a morbid examination of missed opportunities. She too is pregnant and may or may not marry her companion, a sketchy character named Charlie. Charley is not very inspiring, nor is her father, who carries on invisible conversations with her dead mother.