How a writer with this much appeal slipped under the radar is unfathomable, though sexism may be involved. “The vivacity, humor, sorrow, pragmatism and sheer literary star power that fill the 43 stories collected in A Manual For Cleaning Women hit with such immediacy and vigor that it seems unbelievable that their author, Lucia Berlin, died in 2004, at the age of 68, before most of us ever knew about her. A.” ―Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly
And then go back and read them all again. Every detox ward, dingy Laundromat, and sunbaked Mexican palapa spills across the page in sentences so bright and fierce and full of wild color that you'll want to turn each one over just to see how she does it. Life (and a long battle with alcohol) prevented her from publishing regularly, but it's all here in 43 autobiographical stories that read like one long, fascinating conversation full of switchbacks and revelations. “ might be the most interesting person you've never met. Now readers have another chance to confront them: bits of life, chewed up and spat out like a wad of tobacco, bitter and rich.” ―Ruth Franklin, The New York Times Book Review Berlin's stories are full of second chances. But why would you make me do that, darlin'?. You will listen to me if I have to force you, her stories growl. Lucia Berlin spins you around, knocks you down and grinds your face into the dirt.
“Some short story writers-Chekhov, Alice Munro, William Trevor-sidle up and tap you gently on the shoulder: Come, they murmur, sit down, listen to what I have to say. Her stories swoop low over towns and moods and minds.” ―Dwight Garner, The New York Times
Berlin's stories make you marvel at the contingencies of our existence. “In A Manual for Cleaning Women we witness the emergence of an important American writer, one who was mostly overlooked in her time.
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