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Jan 20, 2018Mooseum rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
I had been slightly familiar with Lucia Berlin, thanks to Alastair Johnston of Poltroon Press, who published her short story, "Legacy," back in 1983. This story reappears as "Dr. H.A. Moynihan" in this collection. Berlin's writing is captivating. Her descriptions of unglamorous day-to-day living is slightly askew. The short story "A Manual for Cleaning Women" somehow paralleled my life in Oakland during the 1960s, riding the same buses in Oakland and Berkeley, being around the same sorts of people when I was a teenager. My favorite excerpt is from this story: Ter refused to ride buses. The people depressed him, sitting there. He liked Greyhound stations though. We used to go to the ones in San Francisco and Oakland. Mostly Oakland, on San Pablo Avenue. Once he told me he loved me because I was like San Pablo Avenue. He was like the Berkeley dump. I wish there was a bus to the dump." There is plenty to behold in Berlin's stories, if only they get you to see things from a different perspective in beautifully-written prose.