A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

This was, of course, a book club pick as I almost never choose short stories on my own unless it's an author I'm already all-in on. If they're good, I want them to be longer, and if they're not good, they're not good. This collection, from a previously little-known author, Lucia Berlin, was very buzzy a few years back so I hoped it might be one of the better ones. Alas, for me it was not. These stories vary in length from just a few pages to about 25ish, averaging about 10-15, so at least it moves quickly. Virtually all of them feature a female protagonist whose life has very similar details to Berlin's own: four children, a few failed marriages, a peripatetic childhood, odd jobs to stay afloat, alcoholism. They're little slices of a life that dangles now closer, now farther from the margins. Berlin's prose is clear, true, with sudden and bright flashes of dark humor. But the effect, for me, of having these stories collected together was to make them feel samey. There were moments, here and there, of truth so straightforwardly rendered it was nearly breathtaking, but on the whole I just could not key into what the introduction and foreword took pains to tell me was the brilliance on display here. Two stories featured themes I found hard to deal with and wish I would have known about ahead of time so I'll note them here for other readers: “Dr. H.A. Moynihan” has tooth-pulling that will horrify the squeamish, and “Mijito” has infant abuse and death.