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; ...