Cleaner - Brandi Wells

 

I remember a cleaner I once had at work who cleaned my room conscientiously at the end of the day. However whenever she was on duty , I made sure to be out of my room when she worked. She was – nosey – in a word! Always prying, commenting, trying to tease both personal and corporate information out of me. She actually made me feel very uncomfortable. So I was intrigued to read this book by Brandi Wells.

The art of satire is alive, well, and residing within a deceptive, simply presented novel, Cleaner. When I first picked the book up I was anticipating a lightweight, almost superficial read that would entertain me at best. Then I read the first paragraph and I knew I was in for so much more.

Cleaner is a deliciously quirky, funny, subtle polemic that has so much to say about employment, status, hierarchies, confidentiality and self-esteem. It’s sharply observed and this author is astute and perceptive when it comes to her fellow human beings.

None of the characters are named except for the pet names the cleaner has devised based on her observations of the employees’ desks (and contents!) and their computers! The two other characters have initial letters which is a powerful device, always has been, think Kafka! But this is no existential tale. It is very much a story of now, of today, of contemporary attitudes. 

The main protagonist is the cleaner and what a triumph of a character she is. The entire narrative is seen through her eyes; her perceptions and assessments of the situations she is in and the people she encounters. There is a subtlety to her perception of herself and her relationship with those she cleans for which makes for some laugh out loud moments as her behaviour makes it clear who her favourites are and who they aren’t! Her self belief is admirable and she takes a pride in her work and ensuring that she does a good job.  Of course there has to be more to the story that somebody cleaning an office block! The cleaner’s desire to protect the organisation for whom she cleans borders on the obsessional at time and provokes some questionable behaviour in terms of security and confidentiality but if the end justifies the means? I’ll say no more plot wise. 

In many ways it’s a dark read but it elicits a great deal of thought about contemporary attitudes, in the workplace certainly but in the wider platform of life and how much we really know of our fellow man other than our own assumptions. The poignancy of that is best illustrated towards the end of the novel when the cleaner’s own assumptions were exploded. 

I found it a highly entertaining and thought provoking read, original. My thanks to Tandem Collective for a gifted copy.