my becoming-a-genius project, part 16...maybe? (and one of my favorites of the year! find my list: https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.com/2022/01/10/the-very-best-books-of-the-worst-year-yet/)

if you've had the misfortune of digitally encountering me before, you probably know what that means: i pick up the collected works (almost no entries have actually met this parameter) of various Respected Authors (a category that apparently depends on my mood) and read a story a day (except most saturdays, or when i'm slumping, or when i forget, or when i read more than one like the teacher's pet suckup i am) until i become a genius (which is funny because it will never happen).

anyway, this triumphantly fails to meet all guidelines. this is a selection of lucia berlin's stories, berlin is a recent entrant into the canon if she's there at all, i already accidentally read the first 17 stories, and i am dumber than ever.

so i'm not sure this can count as a genius project even if i'm being nice to myself. but i just remembered i make the rules so. f*ck it.

the past projects:
PROJECT 1: THE COMPLETE STORIES BY FLANNERY O'CONNOR
PROJECT 2: HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES BY CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
PROJECT 3: 18 BEST STORIES BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
PROJECT 4: THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES BY SHIRLEY JACKSON
PROJECT 5: HOW LONG 'TIL BLACK FUTURE MONTH? BY N.K. JEMISIN
PROJECT 6: THE SHORT STORIES OF OSCAR WILDE BY OSCAR WILDE
PROJECT 7: THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK BY ANDREW LANG
PROJECT 8: GRAND UNION: STORIES BY ZADIE SMITH
PROJECT 9: THE BEST OF ROALD DAHL BY ROALD DAHL
PROJECT 10: LOVE AND FREINDSHIP BY JANE AUSTEN
PROJECT 11: HOMESICK FOR ANOTHER WORLD BY OTTESSA MOSHFEGH
PROJECT 12: BAD FEMINIST BY ROXANE GAY
PROJECT 12.5: DIFFICULT WOMEN BY ROXANE GAY
PROJECT 13: THE SHORT NOVELS OF JOHN STEINBECK
PROJECT 14: FIRST PERSON SINGULAR BY HARUKI MURAKAMI
PROJECT 15: THE ORIGINAL FOLK AND FAIRY TALES OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM
PROJECT 16: A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN BY LUCIA BERLIN

STORY 1: ANGEL'S LAUNDROMAT
sheesh. you can immediately tell lucia berlin was That Bitch.
i kept rereading paragraphs but it could have either been due to lack of focus on my part or because i really wanted them to sink in, like when you replay your favorite song because you weren't appreciating it enough.
let's err on the side of positivity for once.
rating: 3.5

STORY 2: DR. H.A. MOYNIHAN
this made me dearly miss my grandpa, who - while not a maniacal and disturbing dentist indulging in raging alcoholism - was a kind of ornery old guy with a penchant for jack daniels.
or maybe it was just that phoebe bridgers' cover of summer's end came on shuffle while i was reading this.
either/or.
rating: 4

STORY 3: STARS AND SAINTS
i have spent, as i write these little notes in my little notebook that i will later transfer to my little goodreads, most of the past 48 hours in public. as someone with untreated (but diagnosed!) anxiety that is rapidly devolving into agoraphobia, that means i have spent most of the same period believing myself so horrifically awkward it warrants execution.
this made me feel better.
rating: 4

STORY 4: A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN
i always expect a lot from title stories.
here, i was right to.
rating: 5

STORY 5: MY JOCKEY
a one pager. bold.
update: i later learned this was one of the only stories lucia berlin wrote to be recognized in her lifetime, so i feel stupid for not liking it as much as some of the others...but i don't. so.
speaking my truth.
rating: 3.75

STORY 6: EL TIM
i hated reading this but that was maybe the point?
this felt like ottessa moshfegh, and surrounded by the other stories in this collection it made me like ottessa moshfegh less.
rating: none

STORY 7: POINT OF VIEW
i just fell in love.
i'm in love with this story.
it'll be an autumn wedding and you're all invited.
rating: 5

STORY 8: HER FIRST DETOX
i'm like 1/8 of the way through this collection and already dreading finishing it.
rating: 5

STORY 9: PHANTOM PAIN
it do be like that. that's all i can say.
rating: 4.5

STORY 10: TIGER BITES
all of these stories are:
- excellent
- semi-autobiographical
- in an endlessly confusing way.
rating: 4.5

STORY 11: EMERGENCY ROOM NOTEBOOK, 1977
very grateful for a year to ground me. i have no f*cking idea when most of these take place.
rating: 3.5

STORY 12: TEMPS PERDU
too gross for me. i'm sensitive.
rating: 3

STORY 13: CARPE DIEM
i am getting some anxiety rep with devastating accuracy here.
rating: 4.5

STORY 14: TODA LUNA, TODO ANO
well f*ck. this was nice.
this book is giving me so precisely what i need that it feels like a prescription.
i read this on a plane fleeing the same goddamn place the protagonist of this story is fleeing.
rating: 4.5

STORY 15: GOOD AND BAD
i love when i feel kind of meh about a story and then i come back here to write that and see the title i noted down earlier and go "OH! well that changes things."
rating: 3.5

STORY 16: MELINA
this one is kind of basic and silly, but with the same stunning writing, and it made me remember the others are truly brilliant.
rating: 3

STORY 17: FRIENDS
like the last one, but improving from the cliché and trite.
rating: 4

STORY 18: UNMANAGEABLE
addiction is very scary.
the least hot take of all time, but this story knocked the sense out of me.
rating: 4

STORY 19: ELECTRIC CAR, EL PASO
allow me to reflect on what the hell this one means.
rating: none

STORY 20: SEX APPEAL
in a shocking twist, it turns out the men of hollywood have ALWAYS used their power and charisma to be f*cking disgusting.
rating: 3.75

STORY 21: TEENAGE PUNK
i am such a d*ck. here i am adoring this book for like 18 consecutive stories and then have two i like but don't love and nearly pitch a fit.
thanks for winning me over anyway, lucia.
rating: 4.5

STORY 22: STEP
good song. one of vampire weekend's best.
lucia berlin published three volumes of stories in her time, none of which garnered much attention, and then this little number was published a decade after her death and near-inexplicably sold more than all three of them combined in a matter of weeks.
this may include most of the stories in those three, but i don't care. this is good enough that i'm tracking down all of them.
rating: 4.5

STORY 23: STRAYS
it's a metaphor, see. you put the double meaning right in the title but you don't give it the power till the ending.
rating: 4.5

STORY 24: GRIEF
well now i am just petrified of having my relationship with my sisters turn out like this.
more importantly, people just don't go on holiday like they used to. that's something i've learned from this project.
rating: 4

STORY 25: BLUEBONNETS
people are scary. in multitudinous ways for countless reasons.
men especially.
rating: 3.5

STORY 26: LA VIE EN ROSE
a few days ago, i was fleeing a place i hate and had run out of reading material just before my flight. the universe smiled upon me because there was an outpost of one of my favorite indie bookstores in the terminal (and when is there ever anything but hudson news anymore), and then full on grinned because there was exactly one copy of this book left - which had been on my to-read list since i saw it in the non-airport location of said bookstore.
so i grabbed it, spent the remaining time before my flight walking around, boarded, sat in my seat, hit shuffle on my spotify (in which i only have, like, 2 playlists named variations of "songs i like" with hundreds of entries), and thought my thoughts.
for some reason, i was turning the phrase "la vie en rose" around in my head, thinking of lucy dacus's cover of that song, wondering if it was still in my playlist because i hadn't heard it in a while, when boom - the song ends, the next song plays, and it's "la vie en rose." out of hundreds. right at the moment i considered it.
i was so stunned i wanted to take my earbuds out and tell someone, but i am not that person, so i did a :o face to myself and picked this book up. skimmed the table of contents, which i don't usually do but for occasions with short stories.
and then - no f*cking way. a story, midway down the list's second page: "la vie en rose."
life is quite fantastic, from time to time.
this is pretty wonderful too.
rating: 4.5

STORY 27: MACADAM
little and lovely.
rating: 4

STORY 28: DEAR CONCHI
even lucia berlin's love stories are so realistic it hurts my feelings. reading this story at the same time as a rom-com felt like a moment to moment reality check.
rating: 4

STORY 29: FOOL TO CRY
lucia has so many self-insert names for herself. lou, lu, carlotta, dolores...but at the same time there's like 5 stories about each one. are they the same character? are they not? am i supposed to put two and two together or would that make seven? ARGH.
anyway, any protagonist who says things like "I decided to use the word dear instead of expensive from now on" and answers the question what do you find boring with "Nothing, actually. I've never been bored" is a special favorite to me.
AND a great last line? lucia, you spoil me.
rating: 5

STORY 30: MOURNING
reminds me of that sally rooney quote: “If people appeared to behave pointlessly in grief, it was only because human life was pointless, and this was the truth that grief revealed.”
but this is prettier and subtler.
rating: 5

STORY 31: PANTEON DE DOLORES
these stories are so good i want to mansplain them. the reversal of the traditional definitions of "lonely" versus "alone"...
rating: 5

STORY 32: SO LONG
i paused this story halfway to buy every lucia berlin book i could find.
rating: 5

STORY 33: A LOVE AFFAIR
i can't keep adoring multiple characters per story like this. i'm a hater. i'm not built to hold so much in my heart.
rating: 5

STORY 34: LET ME SEE YOU SMILE
so it turns out a story about an adult sleeping with a minor is never going to work for me. not if the genders are reversed, not if it's written by sally rooney, not if it's written by lucia berlin. f*cking grossos.
i will say it's funny how lucia wrote a self-insert character and then had every other character compliment her at length.
rating: 2.5

STORY 35: MAMA
killer of an ending.
rating: 4.5

STORY 36: CARMEN
carmen, from the latin, name of the roman goddess of childbirth.
god f*cking damn, lucia.
rating: 5

STORY 37: SILENCE
these perfect stories oh my god. i feel like i'm going insane. too much five star content at once, it's hurting my brain functioning, i'm destroyed, i'm melting, it's the wicked witch of the west without the flying monkeys over here.
rating: 5

STORY 38: MIJITO
the empathy here. i can't even review these beyond exclamations anymore.
rating: 5

STORY 39: 502
another new name for lucia's fictional versions of herself: lucille. far out.
rating: 4

STORY 40: HERE IT IS SATURDAY
oh god. this time lucia wrote a character that is herself so that every other character can compliment her, but this time it's a freedom writers / finding forrester / white savior goes to school situation. the character's last name is even six letters beginning BE.
thanks for making it a slight bit easier to say bye, lu.
great ending, though.
rating: 3

STORY 41: B.F. AND ME
silly and little and nice.
rating: 4

STORY 42: WAIT A MINUTE
this was so beautiful and real that i spent the whole story trying to keep it at a distance. i knew if it clicked into place for me it would be too, too much.
f*ck. it still was anyway.
rating: 5 but more if i could

STORY 43: HOMING
the last one. i'm sorry for what i said about you making it easier to say bye, lucia. i didn't mean it.
oh, no. of course this one would be extraordinary.
i want to cry.
rating: 5 and still more if i could

OVERALL
this book knocked me out. i don't know what to tell you. never in my life has a collection of stories done anything like this to me.
i'll be thinking about this forever, in a million different ways.
rating: 5