Cleanness

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

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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 Cleanness stands easily on its own. I will be reading it soon, though.

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The second novel by Garth Greenwell tells an intimate story of the experience of a young man searching for ways to express his emotions.