Lucia Berlin has been called one of America’s best kept secrets. Born in Juneau, Alaska in 1936, she spent her childhood moving from mining camp to mining camp across the country. This experience is reflected in her stories, which offer an intimate and unflinching portrait of America’s working class. Although her work was critically acclaimed throughout her life, it never received wide circulation. To remedy this, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux has released a collection of 43 of her stories, A Manual for Cleaning Women.
A reissue can cause renewed fascination with an author. The interest in Berlin, however, is not simply a passing fad; her depictions of communities in the American West subvert stereotypes and expectations. The New York Times declared that “we’ve purchased a ticket for Raymond Carver territory here,” which is true, in a way. For although Berlin often draws comparisons to the male short story writers of the American canon, she is firmly situated in a trajectory of female writers.
As her close friend Stephen Emerson succinctly puts it, “I can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t want to read her.” We advise you do just that:
