Cleanness by Garth Greenwell

As the streets of Sofia teem with protestors of the regressive Bulgarian government, an American literature teacher (and aspiring author) reflects on his time in the city as he prepares to leave his post of seven years. In Garth Greenwell's follow-up to his 2016 classic, What Belongs to You, Cleanness further explores the experiences of a young gay educator who finds himself emotionally adrift in the decaying European capital. Filled with romantic longing and sexual thirst, Cleanness is, at its core, an affecting account of one man's yearning for connection. In the book's 9 chapters, each of which functions as its own short story, the unnamed narrator recalls specific individuals and occasions that have profoundly impacted his life. Intense love affairs, emotional scars and an uncertain sense of self both inhibit and empower his journey, as his past consistently circles around to link with the present. 

The book's first chapter, titled Mentor, involves one of the author's troubled students and his attempts to be his authentic gay self while navigating a first love with a fellow classmate who is a master of miscommunication. In a busy restaurant, the boy repeats his story to his American instructor, who utters reassuring platitudes even though his own experiences have taught him that the young man will have to find these things out on his own, and learn how to sink or swim. 

Gospodar, "master" in the English language, observes our narrator negotiating an increasingly perilous encounter with an online hookup in chapter two. Ostensibly a sub, the teacher is taught a rude lesson in sexual dynamics when his sadistic trick causes him to rethink his occasional penchant for (more or less) controlled subjugation by strangers.

The third, fourth and fifth chapters, titled, respectively, Cleanness, The Frog King and A Valediction explore the author's turbulent relationship with a Portuguese graduate student, and their comings-and-goings as they attempt to make a life together, despite the younger man's time in Sofia moving towards its end date. In between their lovemaking, dark musings and occasional excursions out of the city, the pair join the anti-government protestors, only to see the small, openly gay contingent of the masses attacked and shunned; these others are apparently not even fit to join the representative majority of the oppressed and have-nots. These three chapters briefly introduce the two lovers to various characters who move in and out of their orbit, as the men, themselves, grapple with the compromises and consequences of maintaining an imperfect union. 

Chapter six, Harbor, finds the narrator attending a writer's conference at a seaside port city where old habits, risky habits resurface as he embarks on a late-night tour of the town with his peers, one of them a cleric who is less than Christlike. 

The Little Saint, title of chapter seven, returns to the themes of Gospodar, only with a reversal of roles as the sub from that story reluctantly emerges as top to a young online hookup who claims he wants to be ravaged and humiliated. Things get rough, at least as rough as they were in chapter two, but the encounter yields unexpected results as the narrator receives a revelatory benediction, of sorts, by the beautiful young man dubbed the little saint.

The final chapter, An Evening Out, details the events of one night during the final week of the teacher's tenure in Sofia. The evening is meant to be celebratory--a group of college-bound graduates from his school insist on a farewell party with their departing instructor. At first, he is disinclined to join the kids but after being caught up in their enthusiasm, the teacher gives in to their demands. After all, he reasons, they're 18 and no longer his students. But with each swallow of vodka, inhibitions are loosened, unwise decisions made. One very drunken student, in particular, has previously been a figure of the narrator's fantasies, perhaps an ominous sign of things to come. As both teacher and students continue drinking, the night threatens to get out of control, until the man chances upon a moment of self-realization that may, or may not, save him from himself. 

Even the city of Sofia is a character in Cleanness. Like an aged Odalisque who has survived many masters, she still manages to suggest the potential for romance, illicit rendezvous and nocturnal adventures, while, at the same time, predicting untold dangers for those foreigners brave (or foolish) enough to lose themselves in her dark corners and narrow alleyways. She is enigmatic and enduring, seductive and treacherous. 

  

Woven throughout the entire narrative are scenes from the author's youth that reflect how the past always seems to impact the present. Cleanness examines the transience of love, and the eternal quest for companionship, be it platonic, romantic or carnal. While Cleanness is sexually explicit, it is not necessarily erotic, despite what some critics have said. Garth Greenwell writes beautifully and is able to bring eloquence and grace to even the most aberrant activities described; each sentence is imbued with feeling and empathy. At times, the book seems possessed with the stream-of-consciousness impetus of Leopold Bloom, while the run-on sentences and lack of quotation marks further underscore the comparison. (As you know, I've never made it past page 25 of Ulysses, although that was enough to leave a lasting impression.) Greenwell's passages come alive with the sheer poetry of his writing. Is Cleanness a memoir, as it sometimes seems to be? Is Greenwell the book's narrator? It could be. Greenwell lived in Sofia until returning to America in 2013, which is when the book takes place. Ultimately, it doesn't matter if it's fiction or something more. Cleanness is a masterclass of wordcraft from a writer who's been there and done that.