"All other characters in “Cleanness” are known only by their first initials. In “Cleanness,” a person is only as important for their actions, reducing the importance of names and other preset labels. In “What Belongs to You,” Greenwell’s debut novel — of which “Cleanness” is a continuation — one character, Mitko, is referred to by his name, as the central relationship in that novel is the one between him and the same unnamed English teacher whose expressive introspection fills the pages of Greenwell’s second novel.

Though in “Cleanness” this de-labeling is implemented to a more extreme degree, a sense of piercing familiarity permeates throughout as readers experience a nonlinear sequence of vital moments in the narrator’s life during and after his relationship with R. Even without having read “What Belongs to You” — which expounds in much greater detail the circumstances of the narrator’s youth, spent living in the American South — the narrator in “Cleanness” is a holistic image of himself, expertly woven within the course of the nine “stories,” or chapters, that make up Greenwell’s novel."

(Full review was published via The Daily Californian; link attached)

I took my time with this one and I liked it that way. It seems new and fresh, while also feeling historical and lost in the past. I will reread this someday for sure.

The tale of human discovery through one man’s journey that is physically subdued and emotionally violent. This short novel is filled with seemingly simple vignettes that scour human desire - not particularly scrubbing away the grit but polishing it, making it undeniable.

Following an unnamed American teacher in Sofia, Bulgaria, the nine chapters over three sections of this novel act as a nesting doll, deconstructing and rebuilding the emotional complexity of our protagonist through interactions with students, lovers, and sexual pursuits.

Frustration, anxiety and want pulse through the chapters unveiling a carnal, unsettling, probing, beautiful look at the dregs of one person’s life as he evolves despite falling back into old habits. It’s a journey that explores the fear and exhilaration of the facets that make us very messy and often harder to accept. But these are the pieces that make us human, relatable and ultimately lovable. It’s also woven with the sweetest love story - The Frog King chapter is everything 💜

The biggest takeaway was the idea, fascination, and ownership of claiming someone else. The main character has an almost obsession with claiming others in his life (or being claimed by others) and it reads both possessive and affectionate.

There is sexual violence included, specifically in two chapters. Though, it’s not violence that is particularly unwanted. Just know going in that you need to be 1) comfortable enough with a certain amount of graphic sex and 2) open enough in exploring how this is absorbed and repurposed in the human experience.

I won’t be forgetting this one anytime soon.

Much like Garth Greenwell's last novel, What Belongs to You, which I admit I never finished, the narrator feels like the author sharing stories from his time teaching English in Bulgaria. In a few he is quite young, some are during revolution, and in some he is older (but the narrator is the same.) His (very explicit and often challenging) sexual encounters, relationships, and friendships are only with first initials, shrouding all stories in a layer of secrecy that suits the plight of a gay man in Bulgaria. The limits he pushes in risk-taking behavior, violence, and so on also manage to show how perhaps Americans also aren't as free as they think they are, and how deeply we internalize homophobic narratives and more.

Emotional riveting heart wrenching sexual emotional holds nothing back.Literary fiction raw honest real.A book that will have you gasping at times but appreciating every page of this moving novel.#netgalley#fsg

This book rocked my world. Garth Greenwell is an incredible writer and each sentence of this book weeps with pain and love and ache. I really liked What Belongs to You, but I loved this book. It will definitely be one of my favorite books published in 2020.

Intriguing but definitely not for everyone. Not because of the content (although some might find it too explicit in spots) but because of the style. This is the story of an unnamed narrator who teaches English in Sofia, Bulgaria and loves, so loves, R. Their romance falls apart but these were, for me at least, the stronger sections of this novel of connected stories about the narrator's effort to find his place. Love is clean, sex is not. Sex is always there. The language is often lovely but it at times feels over written. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

Warning the sex act are graphic

Whoosh! What a story, I have never “clutched my pearls” so much while reading a book
I have not read ‘What Belongs to You’ , so I can’t tell you if you should read that before you read Cleanness, but what I can say is, I really enjoyed this book — minus the xtra, xtra. Greenwell did an amazing job capturing the sense of desire and belonging in these characters. I Highly recommend this novel.

Thank you to FSG via NetGalley for gifting me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I had been seeing Cleanness making the rounds on some popular bookstagrams for a while, and with all the praise it had been getting knew I also wanted to read it badly. If I hadn't been busy, I could've finished this book in a day; that's how hard it grabs you and doesn't let go. I was immediately entranced by our narrator, and how he is confused by old lovers, disgusted but also enamored by new ones. Greenwell's writing just hooks you from the very start into this beautiful sucker punch of a book. It was so easy to fall into the comings and goings of the narrator's life, to not assign names to the important people in his life. You can feel the isolation he feels in another country, and a much more strict one at that, how it shapes his perspective on his own life and the love he feels toward others. I lost myself wandering around the streets and cities he does, finding the beauty in small things, trying to love but not knowing how to completely. My heart ached immensely for him and his relationship with R., with how much he wanted and how much he couldn't say, for fear of losing him. I think that by the end, he is a little more aware of the self destructiveness of his actions, and is trying to be better, but just a little bit at a time, which is one of the hardest things to do when going through heartache and heartbreak. I may never be able to fully understand the narrator's feelings, but this book does an almost perfect job of putting you in his shoes and making you feel. I didn't want this story to end, and absolutely need to read Greenwell's other work now.

An American teacher comes to Sofia, Bulgaria, to teach his mother tongue to students who hope to find a better life abroad with a good knowledge of the world language. While the work is satisfying, his love life has become a lot more complicated since homosexuality is not something that is openly shown in the eastern European country. In a Portuguese exchange student, he finds his love, but things are complicated with the countries’ economies struggling and offering not much to foreigners.

The narrator finds himself in a surrounding which differs a lot from his life before, he roams the streets of Sofia discovering and re-discovering old and mysterious places, being lost physically and emotionally. The political and economic situation aren’t easy either which makes it hard for him to fully enjoy his time in this country of wild nature and rich history.

Greenwell definitely has an eye for the details, e.g. the wind playing outside or hitting the windows and smoothly running over his characters’ backs and brilliantly captures his protagonist’s emotional state. Even though the chapters are often like independent episodes, together they form a complete picture. Just like them, all the narrator experiences are pieces of a mosaic that are unique when look at closely, but you have to take a step back to get the full picture.

Some very interesting observations put in a beautiful language, yet, the mass of explicit scenes annoyed me a bit, a lot of it could have been left to the readers’ imagination.

A novel that analyses human feelings and desires under the microscope, like a darker Richard Ford more connected to the erotic components of human beings. Sex is often presented as a mean of communication, as a way to exercise power and control. The rules of attractions are delineated as brutal as possible but with no cynicism nor the naïf urge to shock or provoke.

This is a novel about a gay English teacher teaching in Sofia, Bulgaria. It's dangerous to be gay here, the small group who attempt to march together in a protest march are beaten. The unnamed narrator tries to support a gay student, even as he deals constantly with his own insecurities and desires, observes this gray eastern European city that he has come to love, and falls in love.

Garth Greenwell's writing is both brilliant and nakedly honest. Whether he's writing about sitting in a café on a windy day or the shame he knows will follow bad behavior on a drunken night out, the writing and the experiences are so true that they are sometimes hard to read, or they bring an experience so fully to life that I half feel like I might have once been to Sofia.

This novel follows the narrator from Greenwell's earlier novel, What Belongs to You, but as someone who has yet to read it, I can tell you that this novel stands easily on its own. I will be reading his first novel soon, though.

This is Garth Greenwell’s second novel and this one is just as surreal as the first. He is a poet at heart and it definitely comes through when he transitions to novels.

Greenwell wrote this book in three parts, each one felt like a separate vignette. Well thematically they all fit together, I felt that they could have been read separately as I did not feel the connection between the sections.

What this book comes down to is it about relationships, each one gripping in it’s own right. There is was love, there was hatred and how cruel people can be.

This book at times felt like a dream, which makes me think I will soon forget this one. Writing was beautiful, but the content did not match.

Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a must read. It's beautiful and heartbreaking. I had already read Greenwell's What Belongs To You and loved his writing style, and so was eager to read this new book. He writes so frankly and honestly about relationships and sex in a way that feels profound and yet so relatable. It's also refreshing to read a book that is not genre (not that there's anything wrong with genre romance) that includes such vivid, erotic scenes between two men especially as they deal with BDSM and power dynamics. I cannot say enough about how great this book is. Even the way Greenwell expertly weaves in the Bulgarian language and culture adds to the rich layers of the narrative. I highly recommend this book for anyone seeking an amazing queer book with gorgeous prose and a enthralling narrative!

Cleanness is a sparse and melancholic novel about an American man living in Bulgaria. His sexual encounters with other men - some of these encounters loving, some purely transactional - mostly take center stage in this story that unfolds across nine vignettes, in which the narrator reflects on the time he's spent living and teaching in Sofia.

Greenwell's linguistic prowess is this book's greatest strength; I think On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is an obvious enough comparison, though they vary in subject matter - but these are the kind of novels that won't appeal to anyone who grows weary of lyrical prose and introspection, who instead need a diverting plot or a strong attachment to characters. (I have to wonder if I'm becoming such a reader, because my only qualm with this book was a certain lack of narrative cohesion that seemed to be beside the point entirely.) But the writing is worth the price of admission alone:

"But none of this was right, I rejected the phrases even as they formed, not just because they were objectionable in themselves but because none of them answered his real fear, which was true, I thought: that we can never be sure of what we want, I mean of the authenticity of it, of its purity in relation to ourselves."

The narrative mostly centers on the protagonist's relationship with a man he calls R. - his ideal, pure image of R. in stark contrast to the degrading sex he seeks from other men after his relationship with R. crumbles. This tension between cleanness and toxicity underscores his interactions, and the alienation he feels as he grapples with shame and desire can be acutely felt. Cleanness is a challenging, sexually explicit book that isn't going to be for everyone, but I found it fascinating for its insight and the prolonged sort of aching sadness it sustains.

Thank you to Netgalley and FSG for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

4.5, rounded up.

Those who were entranced (as I was) by Greenwell's first novel What Belongs to You, nominated for the NBA and numerous other book prizes, have reason to celebrate, since his new book is not even really a sequel as much as it is a continuation of that first book. The narrator/protagonist would seem to be identical. that is, a youngish gay American teaching literature and English in Sofia, Bulgaria. It more or less picks up where the previous book ends, and continues the adventures, professional and romantic, of said individual, who would appear to be at least semi-autobiographical. [No worries if one HASN'T read the first book, since although knowledge of it would probably enhance one's experience, it is by no means necessary for enjoying this one.]

The book is divided into three sections, each three chapters long, which can roughly be designated as before, during, and after the central relationship depicted, which the narrator has with R. (all characters in the book are only designated by initials, which I found a slightly irritating tic, but let go quickly). R. is a younger student from Lisbon, who is restless and rather aimless, but provides the narrator with a focus he himself needs and desires. The 2nd and 8th chapters depict in graphic, almost pornographic detail, pick up encounters of an S & M nature the narrator has with anonymous strangers, in the first of which he is willingly passive, and in the latter of which he assumes the unfamiliar dominant role, and I am sure these will both garner lots of attention and be polarizing for many. But they are absolutely justified in delineating the growth of the protagonist, which would seem to be the author's intent, rather than mere prurience.

My only other (minor) quibble is that, since six of these stories were published previously as stand-alone short stories in various magazines and literary journals, they don't have a strong through line, but these short story collection/pseudo-novels seem to becoming more the norm these days (see: All That Man Is; Girl, Woman, Other; Disappearing Earth, etc.). And in an odd way, it also reminded me of Rachel Cusk's recent trilogy, in that one finds out much about the central figure through both internal thoughts and interactions with others.

I have a feeling this book will be an even bigger success for Greenwell, and probably go on to be nominated for, and possibly win, many book awards in 2020.

My sincere thanks to Netgalley and FS & G for an ARC of this book in exchange for this honest and enthusiastic review.

I left this feeling much as I did with Call Me By Your Name and Less. Lovely writing, but very navel-gazing and slow. Ultimately, I’m a plot centric reader and this one just didn’t quite draw me in.

Garth Greenwell's "Cleanness" is an esoteric, erogenous, hurt-so-good of a story told from the reflection of a gay professor visiting from the south to teach abroad in Bulgaria. While the essence of this story regards his perspective, the book is less concerned with the speaker than the individuals with whom he sometimes intimately encounters. Yet, under the heel of Bulgaria’s homophobic government, our speaker and others like him carry on along the path of a life stripped of the most human feeling of all: desire.

This all unfolds in three sections. Part One, a closeted student’s first taste of unrequited love is treated with compassion and care from his mentor, who, meanwhile, discovers the painful limits of his libido under the crack of sexual submission. Part Two, perhaps the most entrancing narrative of the novel, chronicles the speaker’s beautiful and complicated affair with a student called R. as Part Three culminates the book reflecting on the speaker’s life after R., or rather, a life confined to his desires.

After years spent groping through the darkness of such deprivation, via dating chat rooms or the stalls hiding beneath the cold country above, what unfurls inside him is at once a blurring of passion and rage—and what is love if not equal parts both? "Cleanness" not only fields the gay man's wish for a shameless life but illustrates how our carnal callings make new animals of us all under the cloak of night. True to its name, "Cleanness" is imbued with an emotive, palpable intimacy that is by turns temptuous and too delicate to touch—a gorgeous story with a beating heart at its core.

I have a hunch that this major release (pub date Jan 2020) will be polarizing, which only speaks to its poetic power and daring structure - I am deeply impressed by Greenwell's achievement. At the heart, this is a story about a gay American teacher in Sofia, Bulgaria, who wins and loses the heart of a young man from Lisboa - consequently, these events are told in the middle section of the novel, entitled "Loving R.". The first and the last third of the book offer three vignettes each that illustrate the unnamed teacher's life in Bulgaria, his experiences and desires and the repercussions of his love to R.. Greenwell is a fantastic psychological writer, diving deep into the thoughts, subconscious urges and conscious longings of his main character, and the result is not for the timid: If you think you read explicit sex scenes, think again ("At times in this book, I had the goal of writing a scene that was, at once, one hundred percent pornographic and one hundred percent high art", Greenwell explains). The author uses those elaborate and detailed episodes, always told from a first-person perspective, to show sex as a form of communication, to illustrate the workings of sexual desire and what it might be rooted in, and this intention is extremely well executed. On many levels, this is a book about sex, power and control.

So let's go back to the main character and his lover R. for a second. While the former teaches English to high school students, R. is a college exchange student. Our protagonist explains: "Sex had never been joyful for me before, or almost never, it had always been fraught with shame and anxiety and fear, all of which vanished at the sight of his smile, simply vanished, it poured a kind of cleanness over everything we did." The narrator perceives this love as clean, as pure, and some of his sexual desires as shameful, which represents a toxic version of the ideal of cleanness - a complex dynamic that runs through the whole book. The teacher and R. stay together for two years, even after R. has to leave the city, but then their relationship collapses (no spoiler, it becomes clear very early on). Greenwell effectively conveys the inner workings of this transformative relationship, and the fact that the narration is limited to the teacher's point of view makes the reader question the validity of the account.

The other six vignettes all take place after the teacher and R. split up. They are very atmospheric and present a kaleidoscopic account of who and where our narrator is. In part 1, we read about our protagonist
- meeting with a troubled and distressed student who comes out to him hoping to find sympathy and advice for his situation as a gay man in conservative Bulgaria;
- visting a man he met online for a BDSM sex date;
- taking part in anti-government protests.

In part 3, we read about our protagonist
- spending time with Bulgarian writers;
- having very rough sex with a man he met online;
- going out with acquaintances shortly before he leaves Sofia.

All of these present events evoke memories of the narrator's past and reveal their deeper subjective meaning through them. And yes, the book is intentionally disparate, but the voice of the narrator manages to hold it together: The striking details, the gripping descriptions of shifting emotions, the acute perceptions. The writing is captivating and develops a very peculiar dynamic, the mounting curiosity being rooted in the question what other aspects of the main character Greenwell will reveal and how the author will further investigate his central theme, the ambiguity of desire (Greenwell: "I do think one component of desire is always a kind of desire for obliteration of the self, whether we figure that as a metaphysical experience of union and transcendence, or as the desire to be made nothing").

This is daring, fresh, unusual literature, telling a story with no holds barred, showing alienated characters who long for pain and degradation, but also for love. There is something brutal about this narrative, but it's never intentionally shocking. Greenwell himself taught literature at the American College in Sofia, and his first novel What Belongs to You was also set there (and was also a triptych, just like "Cleanness"). The author's approach might thus be compared to Édouard Louis' autobiographically tinged writing. "Cleanness" is a fascinating read and will certainly make waves.