A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

“I love houses, all the things they tell me, so that's one reason. I don't mind working as a cleaning woman. It's just like reading a book.”

Every once in awhile, you stumble on a book, that just reminds you, why books are special, why you have devoted endless minutes, hours and days, to the printed page. This amazing collection of stories, that compile the best work of Lucia Berlin, is one such book.

Many of these tales, are based on Berlin's life, gently linked stories, that show women, struggling to make ends meet, working as cleaning women, nurses and switchboard operators. The difficulties of being a single mother, dealing with alcohol and drugs and in the later stories, dreams and mortality.

Obviously what makes all this work, is show more her writing craft, which makes all this come alive, with humor, intelligence, passion and beauty.

Many readers, are not “short story” fans. Give this one a try: it might just open a door...a very big door. show less

«I'm sorry. I'm a poet. I deal with the specific».
Cominciamo col dire che per fortuna il libro l'ho letto in inglese, col titolo giusto e con in copertina una bella foto della stessa Berlin. E continuiamo col dire che Munro, Carver e perfino Cechov (citati in quarta di copertina) non sono tanto autori in cui trovare somiglianze con lo stille di Berlin ma piuttosto compagni di squadra nel gruppo dei grandi scrittori di racconti, in cui Lucia entra di diritto. Ho letto questo libro - come sempre mi viene di fare con le raccolte di racconti - con grande lentezza, in quasi nove mesi in cui ovviamente ho letto altro. In questo periodo Berlin è stata una compagna fidata e ora quasi mi dispiace aver terminato i racconti. Se c'è un tratto show more che riconosco a questa autrice e che definisce la sua unicità anche rispetto a quelli citati sopra, è il suo essere sempre così se stessa. In questi racconti ci sono l'America del Sud e il Messico, ci sono i luoghi, i lavori e soprattutto le persone che Berlin ha frequentato. E c'è la sua voce, unica nel delineare un punto di vista inconfondibilmente femminile. show less

A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN is hands down one of the best short story collections I have read in years. It's hard to believe that the author, Lucia Berlin, was virtually unknown during her lifetime. She died fifteen years ago. She'd finally gotten sober after suffering from alcoholism for most of her adult life. And yes, she did work as a cleaning woman, even while still drinking, and was writing all the time too. A lot of the stories here are about her life as an alcoholic, and there is a surprising amount of humor in them. Berlin's stories have been compared to Denis Johnson's JESUS' SON stories, and yeah, I can see that, but Johnson's stories never made me laugh like Berlin's do. Her stories have also been called "autofiction," or show more highly autobiographical, and she has acknowledged that too, although she also admitted mixing fact and fiction quite easily. Married a few times, and the mother of four sons, Berlin was pretty philosophical about it all, noting in her story, "So Long," -

"So what is marriage anyway? I never figured it out. And now it is death i don't understand. My country after Rodney King and the riots. All over the world, rage and despair."

Hmm … Still pretty relevant, huh? And there are several stories here about death, as her narrator sits with her younger sister, who is dying slowly and painfully of cancer, in Mexico City. The sisters become closer, remembering their horrible childhoods, neglected by their alcoholic mother, molested by their grandfather. Their mother, who attempted suicide a couple times, always leaving the narrator notes, one signed Bloody Mary, another said, "No noose … couldn't get the hang of it." See? Very dark humor, perhaps inherited.

There is another hilarious story about Lu's friendship with four old winos who sit in a junked Corvair and drink all day. And how Lu is NOT arrested for DWI, because her car was empty when it hit their junker. Sorry, you have to READ the story. It's funny! And there are heartbreaking stories here too, like the teenage mother illegal immigrant and her baby in "Mijito."

There are a lot of stories here, every one a gem. When FS&G collected all these stories from earlier small press editions, the book became a bestseller and the New York Times picked it as one of the 10 best books of 2015. My hat is off to that book's editor and collaborators. Because I loved this book. My highest recommendation. R.I.P., Lucia. You MATTERED! You were a WRITER!

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

The introduction was spot on when it described Berlin's writing as electric.

How it crackles in its detached economy and clarity, to create an incredibly palpable sense of love and alcoholism and waiting rooms and abuse and poverty and families, the vibrancy and brutality and gentleness, the beauty underlying the sadness, and ugliness neath the joy.

Her jazzy, syncopated cadence beguiles; those extra phrases she adds onto the ends of sentences, almost like an afterthought, but deliberate, and ever so effective.

Just like with Munro, my favourite stories are the ones where Berlin is clearly revisiting her own life (arguably all of them then!) There's just something about their autofiction that - although not necessarily truthful - feels show more more truthful than real life.

Now I want to hunt down the Berlin stories that weren't included in this collection. show less

Otobüs duraklarından acil servislere, çamaşırhanelere ve sınıfın arka sıralarına uzanan öyküler; bekar anneler, yalnız kadınlar, kırık hayaller… Lucia Berlin’in ölümünden on bir yıl sonra yayımlanan ve uluslararası bir üne kavuşan bu kitap, Berlin’in Çehov ve Carver gibi ustalarla beraber anılmasını sağladı. İroni ve melankoliyi birleştiren, yazarın kendi yaşamından da beslenerek parçalı bir bütün oluşturan bu öyküler, acımasız denecek kadar dürüst, mahrem denecek kadar gerçekçi, dahiyane bir biçimde esprili ve iç burkacak denli hüzünlüler. Var olmanın dayanılmaz sefaleti ve vazgeçilmezliği, ancak bu kadar doğrudan bir biçimde anlatılabilirdi.
Çağdaş yazının en iyi show more saklanmış sırrı diyorlar Lucia Berlin için, biz, sadece, Lucia Berlin mucizesiyle tanışın diyoruz. show less

The forty-three stories in this collection are both a vibrant demonstration of Berlin’s excellence with the from-life short story and, to some degree, the narrowness of her range. Certainly the best of these stories are up there with the highest examples of the artform during the latter half of the 20th century. Some are so poignant and painfully raw as to be almost embarrassing to read. A few are just so sad. Berlin suffered early physical trauma, childhood sexual abuse, emotional shrivelling due to rampant alcoholism in her family especially her mother, and constant uprootedness as the family followed the father’s job placements at mines in the American southwest, in Chile, and elsewhere. Perhaps it is no surprise that Berlin show more herself turned to alcohol and had to battle with its charms and bedevilment for much of her life. She was as sexually adventurous as the female protagonists in her stories, but she also raised four boys, took on numerous service-related jobs to make ends meet, and, as this collection shows, also managed to write and publish dozens of fascinating and skillful stories.

One thing that surprised me here was not the vivid content of the stories or their frank presentations of alcoholism or sexual wandering. Rather it was the near absence of the act of writing, the process, the hours and hours that Berlin, as a real person, must have spent developing and honing her craft. That must have been a major component in her life and yet here it is nearly invisible. For someone touted as a great realist writer who famously draws on her own experience and presents it seemingly unfiltered, this seems curious. I can only assume it is deliberate artistic choice. (Because I doubt she found writing to be more shameful than some of the things she did under the malign influence of alcohol.) My question is what does that choice reveal?

I’m glad I read this collection and got a chance to encounter some of Berlin’s writing. I just don’t think I’ll confuse that with having met her. I think there is more here than what appears on the surface. Which is probably no surprise.

Recommended. show less

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