A Manual for Cleaning Women

Book excerpt: One of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2015 One of Jezebel's Favorite Books of 2016 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. "Perhaps, with the present collection, Lucia Berlin will begin to gain the attention she deserves." -Lydia Davis