I’m very happy for people to talk about it in whatever way seems most helpful to them. None of the available labels feels to me suitable to the book.
Greenwell is in Iowa City when we speak on the telephone – he is a visiting lecturer at the renowned Writers’ Workshop there.ĭo you think of this book as a novel or a collection of short stories? The stories are not arranged chronologically but, rather, radiate out from the three middle chapters, which focus most directly on R. The book is structured as nine interlinked stories, centred around the narrator’s affair with a man known only as R. Like its predecessor, the new work concerns an unnamed American teacher working in Sofia who falls in love with a man who brings him both great pleasure and pain. In exacting, elegant prose, Greenwell transcribes the strange dialects of desire, cementing his stature as one of our most vital living writers.G arth Greenwell’s second book, Cleanness, seems to flow directly from his sumptuous, sensuous debut, What Belongs to You. Each echo reveals startling insights about what it means to seek connection: with those we love, with the places we inhabit, and with our own fugitive selves.Ĭleanness revisits and expands the world of Garth Greenwell’s beloved debut, What Belongs to You, declared ‘an instant classic’ by the New York Times Book Review. A queer student’s confession recalls his own first love, a stranger’s seduction devolves into paternal sadism, and a romance with a younger man opens, and heals, old wounds. As he prepares to leave the place he’s come to call home, he grapples with the intimate encounters that have marked his years abroad, each bearing uncanny reminders of his past.
In this atmosphere of disquiet, an American teacher navigates a life transformed by the discovery and loss of love. Soviet buildings crumble, wind scatters sand from the far south, and political protesters flood the streets with song. Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, stirs with hope and impending upheaval.
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