A Manual for Cleaning Women

The Fiction Spot

A snapshot review of a book related to the Non-fiction Feature

Also in this Weekly Bulletin:
The Non-fiction Feature: $2.00 a Day by Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer
The Product Spot: Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

The Pithy Take

Lucia Berlin moved constantly with her four boys and the jobs she wrote about in her collection of short stories, A Manual for Cleaning Women, traced her nomadic lives: cleaning woman, ER nurse, hospital ward clerk, hospital switchboard operator, teacher, and others. Her beautiful stories about people who are not oft written, and the moments that flash bright and dull, illuminate the richness and complexities of their lives. Things are gritty, things are unpolished, and things are startling—all presented in spare writing that is nonetheless lush with description.

Doing everything wrong not only reassures them you are thorough, it gives them a chance to be assertive and a “boss.” Most American women are very uncomfortable about having servants. They don’t know what to do while you are there. Mrs. Burke does things like recheck her Christmas card list and iron last year’s wrapping paper. In August.