A review by frogwithlittlehammer
A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin

reflective

5.0

I feel similarly to how I reacted when I read Ali Smith’s How to Be Both. Goodness, I didn’t know books could be like this—however, I suppose a chunk of the credit goes to whoever assembled the collection of short stories as well... “Here It Is Saturday” is one story that stands out in particular by how completely it took me by surprise, though I can imagine many people saw it coming. I never see things coming. 

Chekhov is one of my favorite writers, and before Lucia Berlin, I didn’t like any other short-story writers. But now I believe I’d like to get into some Raymond Carver and Alice Munro, perhaps Borges and maybe Denis Johnson. Though I worry I would get too used to the cycle of short-circuited gratification that comes after the end of a story, and I also worry that is what draws me to the genre. I am a woman obsessed with shiny satin bows on crisply folded paper wrapped boxes. The story doesn’t have to have a narrative, but it just has to have an ending in sight. I wonder what that says about me.