A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

The forty-three stories in this collection are both a vibrant demonstration of Berlin’s excellence with the from-life short story and, to some degree, the narrowness of her range. Certainly the best of these stories are up there with the highest examples of the artform during the latter half of the 20th century. Some are so poignant and painfully raw as to be almost embarrassing to read. A few are just so sad. Berlin suffered early physical trauma, childhood sexual abuse, emotional shrivelling due to rampant alcoholism in her family especially her mother, and constant uprootedness as the family followed the father’s job placements at mines in the American southwest, in Chile, and elsewhere. Perhaps it is no surprise that Berlin herself turned to alcohol and had to battle with its charms and bedevilment for much of her life. She was as sexually adventurous as the female protagonists in her stories, but she also raised four boys, took on numerous service-related jobs to make ends meet, and, as this collection shows, also managed to write and publish dozens of fascinating and skillful stories.

One thing that surprised me here was not the vivid content of the stories or their frank presentations of alcoholism or sexual wandering. Rather it was the near absence of the act of writing, the process, the hours and hours that Berlin, as a real person, must have spent developing and honing her craft. That must have been a major component in her life and yet here it is nearly show more invisible. For someone touted as a great realist writer who famously draws on her own experience and presents it seemingly unfiltered, this seems curious. I can only assume it is deliberate artistic choice. (Because I doubt she found writing to be more shameful than some of the things she did under the malign influence of alcohol.) My question is what does that choice reveal?

I’m glad I read this collection and got a chance to encounter some of Berlin’s writing. I just don’t think I’ll confuse that with having met her. I think there is more here than what appears on the surface. Which is probably no surprise.

Recommended. show less

Added Note: A vigorous discussion at the Breakfast Club prompted me to go and read this story a second time. I have upgraded my rating from a four to a five and I urge everyone to go and read this carefully. It might be the most brilliant modern short story out there.

This is a review of the title story only. No entry on Goodreads for it as an individual story. I would like to read this entire collection.

I love this kind of short story that seems to be about something simple, a cleaning lady and the jobs she has, but that succeeds in revealing something basic about humanity. In a few lines, Lucia Berlin tells us everything essential to know about the families our cleaning lady cleans for, and with almost as much brevity, we learn what our cleaning lady herself is up against in her personal life. The story is revealed to us through our nameless cleaner while she rides her bus from job to job and observes the people on the bus, the city outside the bus, and the internal conversation she has with herself. Well worth the read.


Read the Story Here

This is a charming and engaging collection of stories by Lucia Berlin who must have lived an amazing life. She clearly draws heavily from her own life for her stories, developing characters, communities, and scenery in such vivid and rich detail that the reader is transported. The same characters, communities, and scenery show up again and again but each time presents a slightly different perspective or moment in time. And, of course, the themes are persistent: family, love, loss, addiction, and the persistent progress of time with all its "what if"s.

I can see why, in the Forward, Lydia Davis kept quoting little nuggets from the stories. They are full of these perfect simple statements. Here is a favorite:

"Were we a nice family? I didn't know. What I still do is look in picture windows where families are sitting around and wonder what they do, how do they talk to one another?"

And, from "Homing," the final story:

"I have never seen the crows leave the tree in the morning but every evening about a half an hour before dark, they start flying in from all over town. There may be regular herders who swoop around in the sky for blocks calling for the others to come home, or perhaps each one circles around gathering stragglers before it pops into the tree. I've watched enough, you'd think I could tell by now. But I only see crows, dozens of crows, flying in from every direction from far away and five or six circling like over O'Hare, calling calling, and then in a split second show more suddenly it is silent and no crows are to be seen. The tree looks like an ordinary maple tree. No way you'd know there were so many birds in there."

Who hasn't witnessed this very phenomenon? And Berlin describes it so perfectly, with amusement and wonder and absolute accuracy.

I had many favorite stories among the collection but here is an example of the vast territory of Berlin's writing. Near the end of the collection, "Mijito" broke my heart in a way only the best literature can; I ached as I finished that story. The very next story, "502," was funny and delightful and charming; it left me cheering for its ragtag collection of characters (despite its ominous last sentence).

Highly recommended. show less

A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN is hands down one of the best short story collections I have read in years. It's hard to believe that the author, Lucia Berlin, was virtually unknown during her lifetime. She died fifteen years ago. She'd finally gotten sober after suffering from alcoholism for most of her adult life. And yes, she did work as a cleaning woman, even while still drinking, and was writing all the time too. A lot of the stories here are about her life as an alcoholic, and there is a surprising amount of humor in them. Berlin's stories have been compared to Denis Johnson's JESUS' SON stories, and yeah, I can see that, but Johnson's stories never made me laugh like Berlin's do. Her stories have also been called "autofiction," or highly autobiographical, and she has acknowledged that too, although she also admitted mixing fact and fiction quite easily. Married a few times, and the mother of four sons, Berlin was pretty philosophical about it all, noting in her story, "So Long," -

"So what is marriage anyway? I never figured it out. And now it is death i don't understand. My country after Rodney King and the riots. All over the world, rage and despair."

Hmm … Still pretty relevant, huh? And there are several stories here about death, as her narrator sits with her younger sister, who is dying slowly and painfully of cancer, in Mexico City. The sisters become closer, remembering their horrible childhoods, neglected by their alcoholic mother, molested by their show more grandfather. Their mother, who attempted suicide a couple times, always leaving the narrator notes, one signed Bloody Mary, another said, "No noose … couldn't get the hang of it." See? Very dark humor, perhaps inherited.

There is another hilarious story about Lu's friendship with four old winos who sit in a junked Corvair and drink all day. And how Lu is NOT arrested for DWI, because her car was empty when it hit their junker. Sorry, you have to READ the story. It's funny! And there are heartbreaking stories here too, like the teenage mother illegal immigrant and her baby in "Mijito."

There are a lot of stories here, every one a gem. When FS&G collected all these stories from earlier small press editions, the book became a bestseller and the New York Times picked it as one of the 10 best books of 2015. My hat is off to that book's editor and collaborators. Because I loved this book. My highest recommendation. R.I.P., Lucia. You MATTERED! You were a WRITER!

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

I’ll start this write-up with a suggestion of the order to read this book.
1. Start at the back with “A Note on Lucia Berlin”, which is her life history and hints at the variation in subjects.
2. Read “Silence”, a story about a dark part of her youth, enveloped by an alcoholic mother and grandfather. This sets the tone of how she became the person she was, also an alcoholic, before finally stopping in her later years.
3. Read the Forward, where I learned many stories are ‘auto-fiction’, i.e. autobiographical fiction or dramatized self-truth.
4. Read the Introduction, which gives you precise examples of what’s to come.
5. Read the rest of the book.

My review:
I struggled reading this book, putting it down and even back into the bookcase at least four times. But I’m stubborn and eventually got through it.

There are forty-three short stories in this book. 43 in just under 400 pages! For much of it, the stories read like brain puke, as though she has a sudden recollection of a past and hurriedly wrote it down. The sentences are often incompletely. The words can come across as choppy. If she did that purposefully to reflect the randomness of an alcoholic mind, it’s pure genius. If not, it’s crappy writing, and it was a pain to follow these stories which are presented not in chronological order, not separated by location, not grouped by relation (especially her sister Sally who appeared in multiple stories), and not by the same ‘I’. The ‘I’ is not show more always Lucia. Sometimes it switches to a ‘he’ (“Let Me See You Smile”). Within the same story, time can hop back and forth (“Fool to Cry”), and the ‘I’ can change person (“Mijito”) all without any indicator. Gawd, I hate her dangling pronouns! This book needs some re-ordering and remove a few stories that are dead weight.

Struggling through all that, there are stories that read as though they came from her soul.
“Silence” is named after a period of her youth where she stopped speaking, including at school. Physical and mental abuse from her mother and sexual abuse from her grandfather filled these dark pages, with brief reprieves from a neighbor friend and Uncle John. Her statement of becoming an alcoholic at the end of this story suggest the events here was an instigator.
“Here It Is Saturday” speaks of a writing class in jail. The story flowed particularly well, and the ending was a jolt, in a sad but good way.
“A Manual for Cleaning Women” is touching and yet aching.
“Angel’s Laundromat” is a sweet story about friendship with an Indian (i.e. Native American). Even then, death is implied.
“Dr. H. A. Moynihan” is likely noted as humorous by reviewers, but I just found it gross with young Lucia helping her grandfather with his dentures.
“502” is one of the few that made me smile where 4 old drunks got some free money.

Moments of humor punctuate many of these stories, but overall, to me anywhere, I found the sadness outweighed the humor via alcoholism, racism, death, grief, child abuse, cancer, helpless mothers, harms of gossip, and much more. This is not a book I would readily recommend. show less

I like her writing so much—a great and significant voice, some really transcendent attention to detail, and I'm glad to see she's getting the attention she deserves, even if it's posthumous. I do wish this collection had been pared down a bit, though—a lot of her work is taken from autobiographical sources, and while she lived a hell of a life it's still one life spread out over 40-something stories, and some of the later ones felt repetitious, like they were covering ground that had been mined better earlier in the collection. But still, I'd rather have them all than none, and this is a great body of work. Recommended to all the usual suspects.

Lucia Berlin’s short story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women is one of those books you never want to end. I know that is how it has been for me. In fact, I dragged it out as slowly as I could, reading one story at a time and putting it away, savoring the story, thinking about it and sometimes reading it a second time. I am obviously a fast reader, but I have spent six weeks reading A Manual for Cleaning Women because it is that good. I am finished now, most stories read two or three times over and I am sad. I want it to never end.

Berlin’s story-telling is so simple, but in the way that simple is the hardest thing possible to do because simplicity requires a raw honesty that we all shy away from. But she doesn’t, she is fearless in writing about her own struggle and her own pain, whether she is writing about the violence and neglect of her childhood, her struggles with alcoholism, addiction and prison, her failed marriages, her failings as a parent, the slow and painful death of her sister, it’s all too honest to ignore, to pass over quickly, to move on. Everything demands that we readers think about it and not justin admiration for her craft, but in respect for her grit.

She mines small things for profound insight, like watching a murder of crows settling into a tree across the street and realizing that if you missed their landing in the tree, you would have no idea there were dozens of crows in the tree. They do it every evening and have done so for years, show more but she never noticed, which gets her wondering now in the winter of her lifetime. “ But what bothers me is that I only accidentally noticed them. What else have I missed? How many times in my life have I been, so to speak, on the back porch, not the front porch? What would have been said to me that I failed to hear? What love might there have been that I didn’t feel?”

From her writing, you know that she was surrounded by music throughout her life, lots of jazz music and you can feel it in the way she writes these snappy lists that set the scene, a kind of syncopated rhythm in prose. Her stories are about her life, loosely fictionalized, but they follow the outlines and occupations of her life experience, mostly with the down and out, but also with the elites of Chile where her father was a mining executive. She seamlessly crosses cultures from Anglo to Mexican and back again, reflecting her varied upbringing in Chile, Mexico, and Texas.

She’s funny and joyful, even when the circumstances are bleak. Not always, some stories are just too painful, but even then, there is a wryness, a determination not be defined by the worst and most awful of life’s experiences that reveal this core of humanity, decency and compassion that make me envy those who knew her as a friend.

She drops the wall between reader and writer. In “Point of View.” Consider this:

“Imagine Chekhov’s story “Grief” in the first person. An old man telling us his son has just died. We would feel embarrassed, uncomfortable, even bored, reacting precisely as the cabman’s fares in the story did. But Chekhov’s impartial voice imbues the man with dignity. We absorb the author’s compassion for him and are deeply moved, if not by the son’s death, by the old man talking to his horse.

I think it’s because we are all pretty insecure.”

I cannot recommend this book enough. It’s early in the year still, but it is quite possible this will be the best book I read this year. It is going on my lifetime list of great books that everyone should read. That means you should read it now, not later.

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/a-manual-for-cleaning-wom... show less

The introduction was spot on when it described Berlin's writing as electric.

How it crackles in its detached economy and clarity, to create an incredibly palpable sense of love and alcoholism and waiting rooms and abuse and poverty and families, the vibrancy and brutality and gentleness, the beauty underlying the sadness, and ugliness neath the joy.

Her jazzy, syncopated cadence beguiles; those extra phrases she adds onto the ends of sentences, almost like an afterthought, but deliberate, and ever so effective.

Just like with Munro, my favourite stories are the ones where Berlin is clearly revisiting her own life (arguably all of them then!) There's just something about their autofiction that - although not necessarily truthful - feels more truthful than real life.

Now I want to hunt down the Berlin stories that weren't included in this collection.

110

«I'm sorry. I'm a poet. I deal with the specific».
Cominciamo col dire che per fortuna il libro l'ho letto in inglese, col titolo giusto e con in copertina una bella foto della stessa Berlin. E continuiamo col dire che Munro, Carver e perfino Cechov (citati in quarta di copertina) non sono tanto autori in cui trovare somiglianze con lo stille di Berlin ma piuttosto compagni di squadra nel gruppo dei grandi scrittori di racconti, in cui Lucia entra di diritto. Ho letto questo libro - come sempre mi viene di fare con le raccolte di racconti - con grande lentezza, in quasi nove mesi in cui ovviamente ho letto altro. In questo periodo Berlin è stata una compagna fidata e ora quasi mi dispiace aver terminato i racconti. Se c'è un tratto che riconosco a questa autrice e che definisce la sua unicità anche rispetto a quelli citati sopra, è il suo essere sempre così se stessa. In questi racconti ci sono l'America del Sud e il Messico, ci sono i luoghi, i lavori e soprattutto le persone che Berlin ha frequentato. E c'è la sua voce, unica nel delineare un punto di vista inconfondibilmente femminile.

These are incredibly written short stories, about a lifetime of topics and emotions and circumstances. You can feel the character and strength emanating from each story. I think any one of them would be a good entrance into her work. There are several characters she returns to in later stories, and I was always happy to see them again.

I usually do not read short stories collections. I feel that starting out each book is an investment in getting to know its characters, and get involved in their pain. The short stories are sometimes not worth the investment as they conclude too quickly or take too long to get to the point.

This collection is different. The stories are worth reading for their individual value. They are vignettes, snapshots of a life lived in struggle, between poverty and affluence, sobriety and alcoholism, sickness and health, life and death. They are breathtaking for their emotional power.
They are also taken from the author's live, so we meet the same characters sometimes at different stages of their lives, from different points of view. It makes for an interesting reading like looking at lives in a mosaic of jigsaw puzzle form.

Lucia Berlin's writing is literary without being pretentious. Here the quirky humor, the inventive imagery and new turns of phrase trump the heavy literary prose that plagues most award-wining writing. She is a literary writer for the people, embracing their problems, their body odor, their embarrassing failings in the face of addiction, sickness, infidelity and death. One can feel her empathy and generosity of spirit throughout her narratives.

This book is sometimes heavy, sometimes funny but always profoundly relevant. It is worth putting on your bookshelf to dive into and re-read repeatedly.

I hadn't heard of Lucia Berlin before picking up this book but soon became engrossed in this collection of vivid, moving and surprising short stories. The author was born in Alaska in 1936 and lived in Chile, New Mexico, California and Colorado, places in which many of her stories are set. A Manual for Cleaning Women is a selection of stories published between the 1970s and 1990s. Although she was appreciated and celebrated by readers during her lifetime, it seems that this posthumous collection has brought her to a wider audience and greater acclaim.

I really liked this book and read most of the stories over a few days. Because some of the same settings, characters and themes appear repeatedly in the stories, I found I read the book as quickly as a novel, while still appreciating the impact of each story on its own. Set mainly in Chile, Mexico and the USA, the stories mix realistic detail with the unexpected, and certainly took me, as a reader with no experiences of those places, into a different world.

Some of the stories look back to unconventional and sometimes difficult childhoods and adolescence (Stars and Saints). Others are set in adult life, veering from the glamorous and adventurous to the precarious or lonely, or encompassing all those within the same story. Some describe the experience of alcoholism in an ironic and self-aware way (Her First Detox, 502). Often the stories explore the protagonists’ experiences at work, teaching, nursing and cleaning, in a show more witty and absorbing style (Emergency Room Notebook, 1977, El Tim).

One of my favourite stories is Toda Luna, Toda Ano, about a woman who travels to Mexico after her husband dies and joins a group of locals who teach her to dive. I also thought Here It Is Saturday, a story about a creative writing class in prison, was brilliant, for its dialogue, wit and emotional impact. Good and Bad, a story about a wealthy teenage girl and her Communist teacher, was also memorable. A few of the stories are very sad, especially those about grief, and the author doesn't go for the sentimental or easy resolution. At other moments she somehow captures happiness and vitality in a story's vivid details.

I'd describe the writing style as plain but evocative. The stories are often written in a first-person and colloquial narrative that is intimate and amusing. I have read that Lucia Berlin has been compared to Jean Rhys and Raymond Carver. I can see the truth in both of these comparisons but also think her way of looking at the world is very original. I would highly recommend this anthology. show less

A wonderful cross between autobiography and short-story collection. We meet the same women over and over - ciphers for Berlin - in expertly observed stories. Some are meandering, others devastating, but all are crisp and beautiful.

A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN is a fascinating collection of short stories that were compiled posthumously by Stephen Emerson. What is particularly fascinating about them is that, although the individual stories were published in various places during her lifetime, when put together they feel linked. It's almost as if there is a larger story that the author was trying to tell - the story of her life. The editor graciously includes background information on Berlin, and after reading it (which I would recommend doing AFTER finishing the collection) the reader can clearly see how the characters in the stories were inspired by her own life experiences.

Throughout the 43 stories, there are characters who suffer with drug/alcohol addiction, dysfunctional and destructive families, terminal illnesses, sibling reconciliations, failed marriages, work in the medical field, mental illness, child abuse, teaching, and so many more topics that are covered - many of which the author experienced firsthand. Most of the stories are set in Chile, Texas, Mexico, and California - all places that Berlin lived throughout her life. By the end of the book, it feels as though you know her deeply, not from a biographical perspective, but rather from an emotional and metaphysical one.

Each of the stories in A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN is powerful in the raw emotion that is presented. You truly feel connected to the characters, even in a work that is only a few pages long. To know that the stories were show more directly informed by Lucia Berlin's own life experiences only adds to the richness and depth of the book. show less

When I was in college, I wrote a collection of short stories. They likely weren't very good (and no one read them beyond my advisor, my first reader, and potentially my parents). But they were very much of the write what you know variety and I mined experiences from my own life and from my mother and grandmother's lives to come up with the basis for the stories. Lucia Berlin also uses her own life and experiences in creating the sort stories that form this collection. Although hers are chock full of autobiographical elements, as were mine, I cannot claim to have the facility with language or sophistication of craft that she does but I hope that mine have a sliver more hope and happiness in them than hers contain.

This is a collection of 43 stories, all populated with broken characters. Many are clearly half-autobiographical and several are about the same recurring characters. Even those that are not obviously linked in this way are very similar in theme and tone. The stories are raw, dealing with alcoholism, drug addiction, cancer, death, despair, and loneliness. Berlin doesn't write happy. She writes about the disadvantaged, the poor, the overworked, and the floundering. The stories are straightforward and clearly personal. Having so many under one cover highlights the repetition though. They are well written but perhaps a more careful curation would have prevented the fatigue that set in as I pushed further into the book. Short story readers will likely appreciate these show more as the neglected gems that so many reviewers have labelled them, I just reached a saturation point before I finished (and I did in fact finish). show less

This was a really excellent collection of stories. Most of these are interconnected stories that I'm never sure are just memoirs of Berlin's life or are fictional where she just took aspects of her life; where she lived, family issues, her medical and addiction conditions and just extrapolated. Either way they were really good. Gave me the same sort of vibes as when I read Larry Brown's Tiny Love

For me, reading Lucia Berlin was like coming home, as some of its themes touch on issues in my own life, including shifts between working and middle class experience. I learned a lot about writing fiction, particularly developing characters and letting the character be the story. The book seems to consist of memoir, thinly veiled memoir, and a little fiction, which is another interesting element. I'm sure I'll be revisiting this book in the future; I wish the title story were online so I could share it widely.

These stories all ring true. Lucia Berlin lead a challenging life doing lots of different jobs in different places, and she writes her stories from herself. Her characters are nurses, ward clerks, construction workers, teachers, damaged children, catholic school girls, bad mothers and abusive fathers. Being an alcoholic herself, alcohol plays a large part in the stories. There's humor, sadness, great tragedy, familiar situations and quick surprises. I've usually found a whole book full of short stories to be too much, but these, wow, I could have just kept reading.

I can't remember having read a book of stories where the author experienced such a breadth of life, of its humour and pain, of its ugliness and wonder since, well, maybe the greatest book of them all, Don Quixote. I even recognize in the book -- perhaps I am imagining it -- one of the doctors who opined on her scoliosis, a Canadian doctor who set my own broken collarbone when as a child I wandered into the street and was rammed by an oncoming car. Lucia Berlin just saw so much. I am in awe.

Nem sötétül el az ég, nem nyom agyon a levegő, nem tombol, nem remeg bele, nem robajlik, nem csattan, nem szakad le. Fátyolfelhőzet és állandó szűrt fény. Sosem tisztul ki. Sűrű a levegő. De még éppen a végtelenségig kibírható.

Megtarthatom a biztonságos távolságot, miközben értem és átérzem, de nem kell cipelnem. Mindig megadja a lehetőséget erre; nézhetem a harmadik szemüket inkább, ha nem bírnám el. Ha másképp nem, hát váltogatott narrátorral. Remény nincs, valahogy mégis van fény. Nekem az utolsók voltak a legerősebbek. De már az első pillanatban felkerült a szeretem ezt az elbeszélői hangot polcra.

Hay un personaje en uno de los relatos de Berlín que dice que no le gustán las fotografías de Diane Arbus, y no me extraña porque todos los personajes de Berlín son como una lectura de las imágenes de Arbus.

I'll admit some of these stories were a little too uncomfortable or a little too sad, not all of them were big winners for me--a few i even gave up on, but her writing is incredible, so present. I loved a good number of these stories a great deal.

I saw some people recommend skipping the intros but i don't think i agree. They're a nice tribute to her writing, give some good context, and when some of those amazing lines come up it's like seeing a friend again.

Manual para mujeres de la limpieza
Lucia Berlin
Publicado: 2016 | 408 páginas
Relato Realista

Con su inigualable toque de humor y melancolía, Berlin se hace eco de su vida, asombrosa y convulsa, para crear verdaderos milagros literarios con episodios del día a día. Las mujeres de sus relatos están desorientadas, pero al mismo tiempo son fuertes, inteligentes y, sobre todo, extraordinariamente reales. Ríen, lloran, aman, beben: sobreviven.

I’ve realized my challenge with short stories. It takes me a few pages to figure out the characters and setting, I start getting into it...and then it’s over. Unless it is a book like The Unaccustomed Earth that I stay up until 3 am to finish, it takes me forever to get through a book of short stories because I don’t feel the urge to pick it up after putting it down.
Lucia Berlin’s stories were compiled after her death in the book A Manual for Cleaning Women. They are fictional but autobiographical too. They deal a lot with the places she lived (Idaho, AZ, Chile, TX, CA, CO) and her life’s struggle with alcoholism, her sister’s cancer, her abusive mother and her many stints in blue collar jobs.
I wish the book was about half the length and either organized by topic or place rather than random stories, I.e all the short stories with her sister Sally in one section, her CA stories in another. That may have made it easier for me to want to keep reading.
Although it sounds very depressing, there are some stories and language filled with hope and love and lots of beauty in nature. It was a good book for book club discussion. Plus, with short stories you don’t have to worry about spoilers as much when some people have only read a few stories.

Perfect stories, what a great writer. I had never heard of Lucia Berlin until my wife gave me this book for Christmas. It's taken me a long time to read this book but that's because I've been sipping it slowly. The author has worked a wondrous variety of personal experiences into stories that have tragedy, humor, warmth, and wisdom all mixed in various proportions.

It's too bad Lucia Berlin had to wait for several years after her death to see her first collection of short stories published. The stories are gems of desolation, disconnection, and passion. Berlin's voice is singular in a way like, and unlike, that of writer Raymond Carver.

A collection of short stories. Some are autobiographical and some appear
to be that but have different character names and some are total fiction. They were fascinating. Someone in a review said to first read “a note on Lucia Berlin”, then read the short story “Silence” and then the rest
Of the book. Fascinating stories, fascinating author.

'E le lavanderie a gettoni.[...] Richiedono troppo tempo, persino quelle della catena Speed Queen. Mentre stai seduto lì, tutta la vita ti passa davanti agli occhi, come se stessi affogando'
Manuale per donne delle pulizie

Una nota di demerito al titolo insulso e sessista dell'edizione italiana

I had never heard of writer Lucia Berlin until I happened upon an NPR review of this collection of her stories. And they are absolutely great. As I read through them, though, I noticed some recurring themes. It was almost as though specific characters had reappeared in multiple stories. When I read the brief biography of her, all the pieces fit together.

I am not usually a fan of short stories, but Lucia Berlin's prose evokes a raw intimacy that leaves the reader satisfied, even after just a few pages. Highly recommended.

This kind of irony simply does not appeal to me - or it might well be that I just don't understand it. The problem for me was that I could not feel for the characters and I did not find sympathy from the author for them either. I must say it was incredibly difficult for me to concentrate on the stories, although in general I like this kind of seemingly flat stories with quite an abrupt end. Now, in the end of each story, I felt disappointed and empty. Often the characters seemed somehow quite alike, which made me read the collection as a weird kind of novel where the main character changes name and environment for each chapter. I feel that perhaps I should give this book another try, but somehow I doubt it would still be waste of time and energy.

I'm not usually a short story person, but these are so incredible. Berlin had a gift for describing everyday life.

I loved these stories! Their auto-biographical nature took a little getting used to, but I enjoyed traveling through the Southwest and Mexico with Lucia Berlin once I got on her wavelength. Highly recommended!

I registered this book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14428545

Quite a good collection of short stories. The stories are mainly autobiographical, although the author said she changed things from time to time. But that they were still true. I get that.

They borrow from her interesting life, including time in Chile, later life in Boulder, CO, life working in many fields (including as a cleaning lady), and her life as an alcoholic. Intriguing, often funny, interesting. I recommend it.

WOnderful subjects, characters. Enormous power for such very short stories.

Some of the stories were really difficult to get through and I didn't really get the point of some of the others, which is probably just a me-problem. I don't know. But the parts I liked were really good and it was a solid book.

Love these stories - so real, so well-crafted. Haven't finished the book, but will reread. Grateful to Eugenia for her award-winning translation into Spanish, and all the acclaim it received convincing me to read it.

Crisp and present and unexpected and immersive.

Feia temps que el tenia pendent. Massa.
M’ha recordat en alguns moments a alguns dels contes del Raymond Carver.
És senzillament espectacular.

Llegiu-lo si en teniu ocasió.

Good, but real. You have to be in the mood to read this.

What a voice - realistic and some times funny.

Way too many stories about alcoholics and people dying of cancer for my taste. I could not finish this one--too depressing.

I just didn't get all the fuss about this book.

The only bad thing about this book is that the stories end.

Probably would be fine for me if it had been another time.

Awe inspiring, unbelievably brilliant.

Very interesting stories.

Maybe I should be a nurse. Killer.

Triste, dulce e importante.

"You always fuck things up?"

El cuento en su máxima expresión.

her story set in Noel, Texas (_______) is the funniest thing I've read since Eudora Welty's Why I Live at the P.O.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CX_3CwwvUVQ/

Lucia Berlin - A Manual For Cleaning Women: Selected Stories: Kudos to whomever gave me this recommendation. Utterly astonishing. #cursorybookreviews #cursoryreviews

Heard about on radio, an East Bay resident, alcoholic, manual labor work, rose to professor at UC Boulder. Amazingly terse, insightful, and expressive short stories. Much local reference.

Amazon: ""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

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.

Readers will revel in this remarkable collection from a master of the form and wonder how they'd ever overlooked her in the first place."

from New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-story-is-the-thing-on-lucia-berli...
Table of Contents: https://www.buffalolib.org/vufind/Record/1975847/TOC

excerpt 'carpe diem' http://flavorwire.com/533459/read-an-excerpt-from-lucia-berlins-a-manual-for-cle...
another story avail online, I think -- title Friends?

Maru

!!

Con su inigualable toque de humor y melancolía, Berlin se hace eco de su vida, asombrosa y convulsa, para crear verdaderos milagros literarios con episodios del día a día. Las mujeres de sus relatos están desorientadas, pero al mismo tiempo son fuertes, inteligentes y, sobre todo extraordinariamente reales. Ríen, lloran, aman, beben: sobreviven.

Esta obra de Lucia Berlin se presenta por primera vez en castellano y es una antología de sus mejores relatos que lleva por título Manual para mujeres de la limpieza. El volumen reúne cuarenta y tres historias muy variadas en su temática y siempre protagonizadas por mujeres de un status sociológico sin excesivo relieve: -limpiadoras, dependientas, enfermeras, profesoras, etc.- que intentan sobrevivir en un mundo a veces hostil. La autora parte de un punto de vista femenino en su análisis de la problemática y aborda la realidad cotidiana con gran capacidad de observación, por eso sus relatos resultan creíbles. Cuestiones profesionales, injusticias, conflictos familiares, amores de diversa índole, pequeñas o grandes tragedias en los que se detectan ecos autobiográficos de la azarosa vida de L. Berlin quien rescata del anonimato a un puñado de gente corriente, aparentemente anodina, para prestarle brillantez mediante un cuidado tratamiento psicológico y literario.
Berlin escribe con un fraseo vibrante y construye poderosas estampas de la existencia: alegres, crudas o tristes pero siempre tamizadas con un tono humorístico que a veces se convierte en sarcasmo o incluso en mordacidad. Sus tramas, a pesar de la brevedad, ofrecen abundantes giros narrativos y unos finales llenos de sorpresa, todo mostrado con estilo directo e impetuoso. Muchas de sus protagonistas afrontan problemas de todo tipo en cuya resolución se observa en ocasiones conductas marcadas por una show more ideología presidida por la liberación sexual y la permisividad, con reiteradas referencias al alcoholismo así como cierta ironía al referirse al catolicismo. Todo sin descripciones de relieve pero reflejado de forma incisiva.
Lucia Berlin (Alaska, 1936-Los Ángeles, 2004) vivió en distintas ciudades de Estados Unidos y Chile. Su obra literaria se desarrolló de forma esporádica y por su trayectoria fue considerada una escritora maldita. show less

Con su inigualable toque de humor y melancolía, Berlin se hace eco de su vida, asombrosa y convulsa, para crear verdaderos milagros literarios con episodios del día a día. Las mujeres de sus relatos están desorientadas, pero al mismo tiempo son fuertes, inteligentes y, sobre todo extraordinariamente reales. Ríen, lloran, aman, beben: sobreviven.

Lucia Berlin - en novellekunstner av rang!

Lucia Berlin (f. 1936 d. 2004) opplevde dessverre aldri å nå ut til et stort publikum med sine noveller mens hun levde. Novellene hennes ble derimot svært berømte høsten 2015, 11 år etter hennes død, og nå foreligger 28 av de i alt 76 novellene hun rakk å skrive, på norsk. Det blir neppe de siste! Novellene vi blir introdusert for i "Håndbok for vaskedamer" er stor litteratur - derom er det overhode ingen tvil.

Det er vel verdt å lese etterordet i boka om forfatteren før man starter på novellene, fordi vi her får innblikk i hva hun selv slet med. Hennes livserfaringer har nemlig satt dype spor etter seg i novellene. Dessuten er det et svært interessant 12 siders forord som er ført i pennen av Lydia Davis, og som forteller om forfatterskapet til Lucia Berlin.

Lucia Berlin (pikenavnet var Lucia Brown) ble født i Alaska, og på grunn av farens jobbkarriere, flyttet familien mye rundt. Den tidligste barndommen tilbrakte hun i gruvebyer og gruveleire i Idaho, Kentucky og Montana, mens hun senere i oppveksten bodde i Santiago i Chile. I ung alder fikk hun scoliose, en smertefull tilstand som gjorde at hun måtte gå med korsett. Det var en del alkoholisme i familien hennes, og selv ble hun også alkoholisert etter hvert. Hun tok seg høyere utdannelse, var gift tre ganger og fikk til sammen fire sønner. Hennes søster fikk kreft, og døde et par år senere. I løpet av yrkeskarrieren jobbet hun både som show more gymnaslærerinne, sentralbordoperatør, helsesekretær, vaskedame og på et legekontor. Hun vant til slutt over alkoholismen, men scoliosen forverret seg og førte til en punktert lunge. Oksygenbeholderen fulgte henne alltid etterpå. Alt hun selv opplevde, finner vi spor av i novellene hennes. Som en av sønnene hennes har sagt (sitat fra bokas forord): "Mamma skrev sanne historier, ikke nødvendigvis selvbiografiske, men i grenselandet." (side 10)

"Fikk hun sin enestående fortellerevne fra de historiefortellerne hun vokste opp med? Eller var hun alltid tiltrukket historiefortellere, oppsøkte hun dem, lærte av dem? Utvilsomt begge deler. Hun hadde et naturlig grep om fortellingens form, struktur. Naturlig? Det jeg mener, er at selv om historiene hennes har en balansert, solid struktur gir de inntrykk av å skifte helt naturlig fra et emne til et annet, eller, i noen tilfeller, fra nåtid til fortid - selv innenfor én og samme setning ...

... Alistair Johnston har dette å si om novellenes utvikling: "Hun skrev katarsisk, men i stedet for å bygge opp til en åpenbaring, var hun mer tilbakeholden i sin fremmaning av klimakset, lot leseren fornemme det. Som Gloria Frym sa i American Book Review: hun tonet det ned, sirklet det inn og lot øyeblikket avsløre seg selv." (fra forordet til Lydia Davis på side 15)

Det som særpreger novellene i "Håndbok for vaskedamer", er en råskap og brutalitet, som kjennes så ekte, så selvopplevd, så autentisk. Jeg tenkte underveis at slik går det bare ikke an å skrive uten at det er selvopplevd. Vi møter mennesker som lever på siden av det etablerte samfunnet. Fattigdom, rusavhengighet og sykdom setter sitt preg på menneskenes skjebner.

I noen av novellene settes ulike skjebner opp mot hverandre, slik at vi skjønner hvor kompleks virkeligheten kan være. Her er det ikke svart eller hvitt, rett eller urett - derimot mye både og. Hvem har det for eksempel verst i novellen "Angel´s Laudromat" - hun som putter de siste pengene hun har på feil vaskemaskinautomater, og som dermed ikke får vasket klærne sine - eller indianeren som må finne seg i å få klærne sine vasket enda en gang, og som dermed opplever at den eneste fritiden han har den uka blir spist opp av unødvendig venting på vaskeriet? Han desperat etter å ta vare på øyeblikk av frihet - hun desperat etter å få vasket sitt tøy med de siste slantene hun har ...

I novellen "Mijito" møter vi analfabeten og den ulovlige innvandreren, som gifter seg med Manolo for å få lovlig opphold i USA. Slik sikrer mannen seg at hun får sosialhjelp. Hun blir gravid, bare for å oppleve at mannen havner i fengsel. Venner av ham tar seg av henne, men alt de er interessert i er pengene hun kan få ut på sosialen. Hun føder sønnen Jesus, men hennes uvitenhet og frykt fører henne til slutt ut i en elendighet som er til å skrike høyt av ... Ikke fordi forfatteren gnir elendigheten inn i oss, men fordi vi bare aner den der inne i historien.

Vi møter den alkoholiserte bestefaren i "Dr. H.A. Moynihan" - "tilfeldigvis" tannlege slik som forfatterens egen alkoholiserte bestefar var ... Og som sitt mesterstykke tar en avstøpning av sine egne tenner, og får barnebarnet sitt - jeg-personen i fortellingen - til å trekke ut alle hans egne tenner. Blodet fosser, og så kommer moren hennes ... Da har hun akkurat satt de nye tennene - gebisset - inn i munnen til bestefaren, hvoretter de begge konstaterer at det virkelig er et mesterstykke.

"Gode gud". Moren min skrek, og kom mot meg med utstrakte armer. Hun skled i blodet, skjente inn i bøttene med tenner og måtte holde seg fast for å gjenvinne balansen.
"Se på tennene hans, mamma."
Men hun så det ikke engang. Så ikke forskjellen. Han skjenket litt Jack Daniel´s til henne. Hun tok den imot, skålte åndsfraværende mot ham, og drakk.
"Du er gal, pappa. Han er gal. Hvor kommer alle te-posene fra?" (side 32)

I tittelnovellen "Håndbok for vaskedamer" møter vi vaskedamen som vet mer om livet til dem hun vasker hos, enn de selv gjør. Som at ektemannen til en av kundene hennes er utro ... Hun bekrefter også myten om at vaskedamer stjeler. Ikke slike ting som man kanskje tror. Ikke småmynter og den slags, men litt av overfloden - det femtende sesamfrø-glasset i spisskammerset, litt neglelakk, dopapir ...

"(Vaskedamer: Gjør det til en regel å aldri jobbe for venner. F��r eller siden kommer de til å hate deg fordi du vet så mye om dem. Eller du slutter å like dem, fordi du gjør det.)" (side 45)

Underveis møter vi forfatterens alterego i flere av novellene - det vil si kvinner som drikker, kvinner som har scoliose, kvinner som er avhengig av oksygenbeholderen sin. Dessuten møter vi en kvinne med en kreftsyk søster, som hun reiser for å besøke. Det er i det hele tatt vanskelig å løsrive seg fra at mange av historiene har klare paralleller til Lucia Berlins eget levde liv, selv om hun i novellene dikter videre og dramatiserer for å gjøre historiene mer fullendte. Aller mest fascinert ble jeg av de stillferdige poengene til slutt, noen ganger ved å sette alt det foregående i et slags relieff og med en større betydning enn man til å begynne med kunne ane. Novellene i samlingen er av typen man får lyst til å lese om igjen, fordi det vil gi ytterligere dybde til historiene. Språket er sparsomt og konsist. Her brukes det ikke store eller overflødige ord. Måten Berlin beskriver scenene på, gjør det relativt enkelt å se det hele for seg. Hun er dessuten god på å mane frem stemninger som er viktige for historiene.

"Berlin er uredd, hun legger ikke fingrene mellom, men livets råskap dempes likevel alltid av hennes medlidenhet med menneskelig svakhet, av den nevnte fortellerstemmens vidd og intelligens og hennes egen lune humor." (side 14 - fra forordet)

Dersom du er en leser som kun leser 10-15 bøker pr. år, bør dette virkelig være en av dem! Dette er nemlig novellekunst av ypperste klasse!

Utgitt: 1977, 1983, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1993 og 1999
Originaltittel: A Manual for cleaning women
Utgitt i Norge: 2016
Forlag: Oktober forlag
Oversatt: Vibeke Saugestad
Antall sider: 299
ISBN: 97-882-495-1575-2 show less

Arkielämän kuvausta hyvässä ja pahassa. Onnea ja surua, banaalia ja absurdia. Elämää. Mutta taas liikaa hypeä! Petyn aina näihin ylistettyihin ja hehkutettuihin kun hilaan odotukseni kattoon. Hienoja, hauskoja ja oivaltavia novelleja, mutta myös keskinkertaisia ja vähän tylsiä. Nyt viimeistään tunnistan itsessäni että kuitenkin pidän novelleista. Siksikin halusin pitää myös näistä, mutta halusin ehkä liikaa.

Suomennos ei tee näille novelleille oikeutta. Kieli on aika lapsellista, sanavalinnat kummallisia ja lauserakenteet kankeita. Vika ei jotenkin voi olla kääntäjässä koska Kristiina Drews, niinpä omavaltaisesti päätän että vika on kielessä. Joitakin asioita ei voi sanoa samalla tavalla eri kielillä ilman että sävy jotenkin muuttuu. Luen näitä joskus englanniksi ja päätän sitten olenko oikeassa. Koska käyn tätä keskustelua itseni kanssa, asialla ei ole kiire. Olen joka tapauksessa sekä oikeassa että väärässä.

Con su inigualable toque de humor y melancolía, Berlin se hace eco de su vida, asombrosa y convulsa, para crear verdaderos milagros literarios con episodios del día a día.

Bello ma molto duro...non l'ho terminato.