A manual for cleaning women

This is surely a masterpiece. Berlin has been compared to Carver as she portrays the lives of women who struggle with alcoholism, being a mum and an alcoholic, the reality of rehab programmes and the inability to put their lives together.

Berlin herself was  an alcoholic and many of the events in the story echoe her life. Several characters and situations are repeated alongside the narrations, creating a continuity.

You know that with short stories collection there is tendency  to have some very good ones and others quite bad. In the case of this book, the quality of the stories is consistent, displaying a world full of loneliness and desperation.

Lucia Berlin's narratives are truthful, thought-provoking and brutal. They shows the fragile conditions in which these women live, the violence in the atmosphere and the isolation that engulfs them: the alcoholic mums whose teenager boy hides the car keys so she cannot go to buy more drinks, the reality of children being taken away from their mothers because they are unable to take care of them, the anxiety and physical pain of the first days in rehab facilities, all this is masterfully showed by Berlin, a unique voice displaying the actualives of people dealing with alcoholism.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

Salvage the Bones

Jesmyn Ward is a survivor of the hurricane Katrine and uses her experience to portrays the hopeless of the poor rural people who couldn't evacuate because they didn't have anywhere to go.

However, this book is more about the dynamics between the members of a family in the Missisipi coast.

The beginning of the story narrates the birth of a dog's babies, very roughly and savagely. Skeeter's dog is a pitbull and he uses her to win money in fights. With these babies, he hopes to get more money and helps his older brother Randall to go to basketball camp.

The book is told from Esch's perspective, the only girl in the family. Her sex encounters with one of his brother's friend are unemotionally portrayed, and as a consequence, ahe realises she is pregnant. Her drunken, wasted father is worried about the hurricane and he is trying to prepare the family for it.

During the narration, you can see how these characters feel the empty hours of the day, Skeeter's obsession with his bitch's babies, the lack of work around the area and their impossiblity to improve their lives: the family has been poor over generations,.

The beauty of the language makes this book a jewel, making regular lives important, making the experience of  peole who are outside the mainstream the central in a world that tends to ignore them and their needs.

In an interview, Ward explins the reality of the Mississipi coast after Katrina. She claims that many people have gone away after the hurricane destroyed their homes, but they were forced to return as their impossibility to economically sustained themselves. The government's reluctancy to acknowledge these people's needs and circumstances continues, keeping them in the outskirts of society.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com
instagram:ananbooks

Muslim experience in England

These two books play with the issues brought up by the clash between the Muslim beliefs and the contemporary values in the western world.

'Maps for Lost Lovers' portrays the story of  the Pakistani community in an unknown city in England. Jugnu and his lover Chanda have a different relationship according to the small community's ideas: Jugnu is a single grown man and Chandra is a divor cee living together without marrying. Suddenly, they disappear and later Chandra's brothers are arrested for murder. The narration display the following twelve months, gradually disclosing the several lives of various characters which live in a between-world, their ideas clashing with the British customs, their ancestral traditions, their ideas regarding honour and respect being challenged by the younder generation's actions.

'Minaret' narrates the story of Najwa, a Sudanese woman, who has become a maid in England. Her lefe in Sudan when she was young was full of wealth and parties, her beliefs and her father's position in the government challenge by her boyfriend's revolutionary ideas. Suddenly, her father is arrested and executed, and her life changes completely. Exiled in London, we gradually see her approach to religion in an attempt to fulfil the emptiness in her soul. This book portrays Najwa's interested journey towards her community traditional beliefs, finding friednship and understanding in other women.

Both books show an unkown reality by most western people, displaying a reality that is challenged by the clash of cultures, the younger generations trying to find a place in the world, a personal approach towards their parents' beliefs and their own feelings.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks