Manual for Cleaning Women

Lucia Berlin (1936-2004) worked brilliantly but sporadically throughout the 1960s, '70s and '80s. Her stories are culled from her early childhood in various Western mining towns; her glamorous teenage years in Santiago, Chile; three failed marriages; a lifelong problem with alcoholism; her years spent in Berkeley, New Mexico, and Mexico City; and the various jobs she later held to support her writing and her four sons, including as a high-school teacher, a switchboard operator, a physician's assistant, and a cleaning woman. Two collections of her work were published posthumously: A Manual for Cleaning Women and Evening in Paradise.

[Lucia Berlin] may just be the best writer you've never heard of ... Imagine a less urban Grace Paley, with a similar talent for turning the net of resentments and affections among family members into stories that carry more weight than their casual, conversational tone might initially suggest ... Berlin's offbeat humor, get-on-with-it realism, and ability to layer details that echo across stories and decades give her book a tremendous staying power ... [A Manual for Cleaning Women] goes a long way toward putting Berlin, who died in 2004, back in the public eye. Publishers Weekly (starred review) A major talent ... A testament to a writer whose explorations of society's rougher corners deserve wider attention. Kirkus (Starred Review) [Berlin's] stories are peopled with sharp, unpredictable, vital characters (often drunk!). They hit you with a force the moment you happen upon them. -- Jackie Kay, Best Holiday Reads 2015 Guardian