A review by paubre
A Manual for Cleaning Women, by Lucia Berlin
5.0
I think everyone should read this book as soon as they can. It's just so good! Short stories can be great to read, put down, circle back to, but I'm learning not to do that with collections by a single author. In this book, the stories are connected, and this becomes clearer and clearer as you read it. That's why I enjoyed it more when I started reading it back to back, rather than just one story at a time.
Berlin is the queen of the sardonic twist. Her stories are very funny, and seem very very true. She twists her own life into fictional knots, then untangles them over different instalments, looking at what happened from different points of view. I wish she had been more well known when she was alive. She really deserves it.
The editing of this edition is phenomenal as well, which shows from my remark that the book should be read as a whole. The stories have been put in such an order that it really flows, and without ever becoming one story, it's still greater than the sum of its parts.
Berlin is the queen of the sardonic twist. Her stories are very funny, and seem very very true. She twists her own life into fictional knots, then untangles them over different instalments, looking at what happened from different points of view. I wish she had been more well known when she was alive. She really deserves it.
The editing of this edition is phenomenal as well, which shows from my remark that the book should be read as a whole. The stories have been put in such an order that it really flows, and without ever becoming one story, it's still greater than the sum of its parts.