Well, they're not all that curious, and they're not all Rafkin's adventures. Either she simply didn't have enough to fill a book, or she felt the need to be "serious". So interspersed with anecdotes of her cleaning jobs, we are treated to interviews with "dirty" house cleaners, her family's former maid, and members of "Messies Anonymous". Not to mention an extraordinarily self-involved letter to the surviving lover of an old friend, a letter that read as though it were written with an eye to publication.

Rafkin likes to clean, but she doesn't have to, and so one gets the impression, even though it may be unfair, of a dilettante. Too, although she mentions long-term clients, there's a sense that she flits from place to place. There are amusing anecdotes here, but in the end it's not a very satisfying read.

A memoir of a housecleaner, I really wasn't expecting much from this little book after reading the first few chapters, they were entertaining but not very substantive. However, the last few chapters seemed to develop a little more emotional depth. The last chapter encouraged me to look at things in my own life a little differently. All in all a pretty good little book.

House cleaning/House cleaning > Humor/Rafkin, Louise, 1958-/Women cleaning personnel > United States >/Biography