A Manual for Cleaning Women
“Berlin’s electrifying posthumous collection A Manual for Cleaning Women is a miracle of storytelling economy, showcasing this largely unheard-of writer’s genius for streetwise erudition and sudden, soul-baring epiphanies.”
Elle
One of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2015
A New York Times Bestseller
Winner of a 2016 Voice Arts Award for Outstanding Casting
A Literary Hub Pick of the Decade's 10 Best Short Story Collections
Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
"I have always had faith that the best writers will rise to the top, like cream, sooner or later, and will become exactly as well-known as they should be-their work talked about, quoted, taught, performed, filmed, set to music, anthologized. Perhaps, with the present collection, Lucia Berlin will begin to gain the attention she deserves."-Lydia Davis, from the foreword
A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers, and bad Christians.
Listeners will revel in this remarkable collection from a master of the form and wonder how they'd ever overlooked her in the first place.
Praise