Cleanness

By: Garth Greenwell

Narrated by: Garth Greenwell

Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

Cleanness 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. In exacting, elegant prose, Greenwell transcribes the strange dialects of desire, cementing his stature as one of our most vital living writers.

‘This is an exceptional work of fiction, which places Greenwell among the very best contemporary novelists.’ – Independent

Sofia, Bulgaria, a landlocked city in southern Europe, stirs with hope and impending upheaval. Soviet buildings crumble, wind scatters sand from the far south, and political protesters flood the streets with song.

In this atmosphere of disquiet, an American teacher navigates a life transformed by the discovery and loss of love. 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. 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. 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.

Chosen as a book of the year in the New Yorker, Daily Telegraph, Observer and Irish Times.

©2020 Macmillan Audio (US) (P)2020 Macmillan Digital Audio

Critic reviews

Greenwell may be the finest writer of sex currently at work. He is certainly the most exhilarating . . . If the book is imagined as a body, then cleanness – a total lack of shame in putting sexual passion on the page – is what it achieves in these refreshing depictions. In one brilliant passage, Greenwell even redeems pornographic language itself . . . a glorious, affirmative vision. (Michael LaPointe)

Cleanness is stunning, provocatively revelatory and atmospherically profound. Here is love and sex as art, as pulse, as truth. (Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women)

a brilliant examination of love and intimacy (SJ Watson)

Garth Greenwell is an intensely beautiful and gorgeous writer. I can think of no contemporary author who brings as much reality and honesty to the description of sex—locating in it the sublime, as well as our deepest degradations, our sweetness, confusion, and rage (Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood)

An unbearably wonderful, eloquently sexual, thoughtful, emotional delight of a novel - Garth Greenwell writes like no one else (Eimear McBride)

Cleanness is a impressive book: moving, radical, both beautiful and violent, unexpected. Garth Greenwell is a major writer, and his writing provides us tools to affirm ourselves, to exist - to fight (Edouard Louis, author of The End of Eddy.)

Garth Greenwell’s sentences are magical and spellbinding. They breathe, and are alive, in completely unpredictable ways. Words are voyages, says John Donne. Greenwell is a novelist whose art makes a poet stand on his toes (Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic)

I don't know how Garth Greenwell writes such delicate, profane fiction. Reading this book made me want to sit with my emotions and desires; it made me want to be a better writer. (Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties)

Exquisite, surgically accurate writing

Exposing human vulnerabilities, relationships, government, cultures, hatred and small mindedness, expat experience, love and sensuality, this is a beautifully crafted novel that spares no punches. The author narrates his own work, usually a mistake, but in this case the best choice. He has a lovely soothing voice and his own style and cadence that was perfect for the content. I was sorry when it was over.