A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
Reading these stories, it’s kind of hard to believe they weren’t written and originally published as a single collection, they all go together so nicely There are recurring themes and settings and characters, a kind of grit and hardness, sophisticated writing about unsophisticated things (rehab; laundromats). But it never feels mismatched. Not a word out of place. Unforgettable images. So many things happen in these stories, and the world in which they’re set is richly populated.
Amy P. Knight 