Cleanness by Garth Greenwell

 

Cleanness

by Garth Greenwell

Cleanness is an intimate look at shame, regret, longing, freedom, searching, pain, desire, intimacy and distance.

It is taboo to be out in Bulgaria where the unnamed American narrator is working as a literature teacher. He and the other gay men he knows and encounters need to be discreet and hide their true selves. Still, they find ways to meet under the noses of the straight world, with a lot of sex in parks, public bathrooms and other hiding places.

The book is told in vignettes that mirror one another, with the first have a thematic opposite of the second half. These sections include: a gay student confiding in the narrator who feels helpless to guide the student toward a fulfilling conception of what it means to be a gay man; the narrator submitting in an s & m fling that goes too far, to the point of fear for his life; a government protest during the time of the Arab Spring which starts and ends peacefully, with a sidestep into near danger; the narrator falls in love and lives for two years with a Portuguese exchange student who will be returning to his home country and the two can't figure out how to stay together; the narrator will be returning to the US and parties with several Vulgarian and American writers; the narrator meets a young man who wants to be used in the same way the teacher had wanted to be used, and the teacher becomes angry and violent with the young man who enjoys the harsh treatment; and the narrator hangs out with two former students before he leaves for the US, in which he crosses the line with one of them and feels immense shame for it, though it is unclear if the young man will remember it.

The narrator is a deeply feeling person, who is constantly analyzing his feelings about what he is seeing and doing, to the point where he backtracks on his explanations and questions what it is he is telling us, whether we should believe him or not. He yearns for a meaningful connection with another man, yet he is involved in several anonymous encounters where he and they are kept at an emotional distance. Throughout the book, we are exposed to the narrator's need for freedom to explore his darker desires and his search for something solid that will last.

The writing is beautiful, yet gruesome and explicit, while it is sometimes performative as a poet's prose would be, which I thought maybe out of step for the rest of the narrative. I could identify with a large portion of the narrator's experience, particularly his longing and his sense of shame and regret. The idea of wanting to have something pure and real, while holding back and wanting freedom. There is a forward motion to this story which is inevitable, despite the insistence on looking back.

I'm giving Cleanness 4 stars.