After existing on the margins of the literary world during her lifetime and in the years since her death in 2004, the writer Lucia Berlin is finally having her moment in the spotlight. Today marks the publication of 'A Manual for Cleaning Women', which collects 43 of her short stories.
Her work is largely autobiographical, reflecting a life lived in the American West and as well as Chile, New York City and Mexico, multiple divorces, four children, and time spent in a variety of professions: house cleaner, a substitute teacher and a hospital clerk. I find her writing style almost completely singular but to give you a shorthand reference it's drawn comparisons to the short fiction of Lorrie Moore, George Saunders, Alice Munro, and Denis Johnson.