A Manual for Cleaning Women

paperback

Published Aug. 25, 2016 by PAN MACMILLAN.

ISBN:: 978-1-4472-9489-4

"Stories from a lost American classic "in the same arena as Alice Munro" (Lydia Davis) "In the field of short fiction, Lucia Berlin is one of America's best kept secrets. That's it. Flat out. No mitigating conditions." --Paul Metcalf A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With her trademark blend of humor and melancholy, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday--uncovering moments of grace in the cafeterias and Laundromats of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Northern California upper classes, and from the perspective of a cleaning woman alone in a hotel dining room in Mexico City. The women of Berlin's stories are lost, but they are also strong, clever, and extraordinarily real. They are hitchhikers, hard workers, bad Christians. With the wit of Lorrie Moore and the grit of Raymond Carver, they navigate a world of jockeys, doctors, and …

"Stories from a lost American classic "in the same arena as Alice Munro" (Lydia Davis) "In the field of short fiction, Lucia Berlin is one of America's best kept secrets. That's it. Flat out. No mitigating conditions." --Paul Metcalf A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With her trademark blend of humor and melancholy, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday--uncovering moments of grace in the cafeterias and Laundromats of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Northern California upper classes, and from the perspective of a cleaning woman alone in a hotel dining room in Mexico City. The women of Berlin's stories are lost, but they are also strong, clever, and extraordinarily real. They are hitchhikers, hard workers, bad Christians. With the wit of Lorrie Moore and the grit of Raymond Carver, they navigate a world of jockeys, doctors, and switchboard operators. They laugh, they mourn, they drink. Berlin, a highly influential writer despite having published little in her lifetime, conjures these women from California, Mexico, and beyond. Lovers of the short story will not want to miss this remarkable collection from a master of the form"--

4 editions

ElectricMari reviewed A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin

Raw, real.

5 stars

For various reasons (let's count in the fact that this book is almost 400 pages long), it took me so long to read this book. I didn't know Lucia Berlin before randomly choosing this selection of her best short-stories. 90% of the books I have in my e-book reader are the result of weird lists of "books to read" I've found on the internet while I was panicking about having an empty e-book reader. So I don't know to which category this book used to belong. Was it in the "book to read written by women"? "Book to read if you want to get into contemporary short-stories"? I digress. It's difficult to me to say "I loved this book" because it sounds rather superficial and not accurate. It's complicated, as they say. I was fascinated by this book. Many narrators take the pen, but they seem to be linked together …

For various reasons (let's count in the fact that this book is almost 400 pages long), it took me so long to read this book. I didn't know Lucia Berlin before randomly choosing this selection of her best short-stories. 90% of the books I have in my e-book reader are the result of weird lists of "books to read" I've found on the internet while I was panicking about having an empty e-book reader. So I don't know to which category this book used to belong. Was it in the "book to read written by women"? "Book to read if you want to get into contemporary short-stories"? I digress. It's difficult to me to say "I loved this book" because it sounds rather superficial and not accurate. It's complicated, as they say. I was fascinated by this book. Many narrators take the pen, but they seem to be linked together and a couple of stories in, you understand that it's always her, Lucia, writing about her life. Auto-fiction. You understand it because all these short stories are linked by themes. Alcoholism, the Spanish language, Latin America, working odd jobs... they all come back. Was she even trying to hide it? If after a dozen pages you start to think "I see what you're doing here, Lucia", even style wise, you cannot help but being compelled by her writing. Raw, real. As I am writing this I kinda wish there was more to read about her life, but, at the same time, I feel like I've read it all in this book.