‘Cleanness’ examines sex and selfhood with bracing clarity
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Sofia, Bulgaria is the setting for Garth Greenwell’s “Cleanness.” Photo by Hristo Sahatchiev on Unsplash
By Joe McCarthy
“Cleanness,” Garth Greenwell’s second book, explores the textures of desire.
There’s the narrator’s thrill as he unfastens his boyfriend’s belt in a bus stop. There’s the vertigo of pain, the pleasure of being dominated, as a man spits in his face. There’s the affection that blooms as he carefully dresses his lover’s body in kisses, and the shameful pull he feels toward a former student in a nightclub.
What shapes desire? What compels people? The narrator works these questions over throughout the nine stories in “Cleanness.” He struggles with guilt at times, wondering why he’s drawn to degrading experiences. He sees parallels between his childhood and his simultaneously squirming and daring sexuality. He’s refreshed by the strange euphoric moments his compulsion for sex creates.
The narrator is an American high school teacher working in Sofia, Bulgaria, who rhapsodizes about Whitman. His relationship with a Portuguese college student, R., studying in the repressive city for a few semesters, forms the emotional core of the book.
The emphasis on sex might make it seem like the book is dialed up to nine — steamy scenes told in a rushed, frantic manner.
But “Cleanness” is a quiet, reflective book. Greenwell takes his time. He’s also brief. He writes in a plain, elegant style, only sparingly reaching for figurative language, and achieves sublime depth through observation and perception. The stories unfold over a day, an evening, two weeks. He’s interested in impressions, their fleeting nature, how a moment can alter a worldview, set in motion events that topple your sense of self.
In the opening story “Mentor,” one of the narrator’s students shares his story of heartbreak and loneliness over coffee and cigarettes. The narrator tries to provide some advice, but feels alienated from his words as soon as he utters them.
Shaken, the narrator considers how the scalding experiences of past heartbreak caused him to become guarded, more skeptical. The earned wisdom had a shrinking effect, his horizons became bearable.
This conversation colors the rest of the book as the narrator tries to give shape to his life both while dating R. and in the aftermath. The narrator is flush with joy in the stories that feature R., and yearns for his presence in others.
In “Decent People,” the narrator walks amid a cheerful protest that suddenly veers toward violence as it enters a narrow side street. The story shows how receptive we are to our environments, how a tight, claustrophobic space can evoke a fight or flight response that finds release in nascent rage.
The book reaches a sort of twisted climax in “Gospodar,” when the narrator seeks to become “nothing” at the hands of an increasingly brutal BDSM partner who violates his consent.
In “Little Saint,” the power dynamic shifts and the narrator finds himself in the dominant role, tapping into reservoirs of cruelty he wasn’t aware of that, once emptied, reveal craters of grief.
Greenwell brings a candor and precision to descriptions of sex that’s rarely seen in literature. He's unflinching. Whereas another writer would evade graphic realness with hyperbole or omission, he stays still. He treats the swirling dynamics of friendship and love with the same steadfast focus, tracking every flickering change in mood.
His radical honesty is cleansing. In “Frog King,” a love story at the center of the book, the narrator and R. have ten days to spend together over winter break. For a brief window, they can live as a couple unafraid of peers outing them or strangers attacking them. The narrator finally gets a sense of contentment, the comfort of a long-sought mirage.
As they watch a wooden frog statue burn during a New Year's celebration, it’s as if the flame devours his blemishes and complications, leaving him purified, in the moment, and free.
