Cleaner

A biting workplace satire - for fans of Ottessa Moshfegh and Halle Butler

By: Brandi Wells

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Paperback | 31 August 2023 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
336 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.5 x 15.5 x 2.5

Paperback

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I clean the offices and bathrooms and lobby five nights a week, but my actual job is to take care of everyone. They need so much help.

At night, in a corporate office block in an unnamed metropolitan city, a cleaner begins her shift.

As she cleans Sad Intern's desk, she throws away some of her more alarming health supplements, and leaves her healthy snacks instead. Mr Buff's desk is immaculate, but he seems to have a secret smoking habit - not conducive to his fitness journey - which she's going to help him kick. She confiscates the knitted coaster that attractive, sensitive Yarn Guy has given to Cola Woman - someone who clips her nails in the office doesn't deserve his gifts.

But tonight, while scrolling through your emails, she'll discover the secret you've been hiding - the one that will threaten her job, and the jobs of everyone she takes care of. And you're about to find out that, sometimes, your most powerful enemy is the one you don't even see.

About the Author

Brandi Wells is the author of a novella, This Boring Apocalypse (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2015), and a chapbook of stories, Please Don't be Upset (Tiny Hardcore Press, 2011). A native of Georgia, they teach creative writing at California State University, Fullerton.

Industry Reviews

Razor-sharp ... biting and compulsive. - Grazia

A darkly funny tale. - RED Magazine

Is it just office trash or the ephemera of a life? Bursting from the cleaning closet of meditative workplace novels like Nicholson Baker's Mezzanine, Wells masterfully invites the reader into the beating heart of a workplace, uncovering secrets, fantasies, and sorrows with every cleaned cubicle and vacuumed hallway. An unflinchingly honest and often fanciful mediation on people through the lens of an invisible worker who clocks in after five.

The most richly crafted delusion of a novel since Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen. I couldn't put it down - an exquisite novel!

Subversive and clever, this is a novel that will truly make you think about the nature of your day-to-day interactions - and the strangers that are part of your everyday lives. - Glamour

[A] compulsively readable workplace satire. - The iPaper

A sharp and toothy portrait of a life devoted to the convenience of others . . . Cleaner skilfully satirizes the work-place novel, offering cutting insights on the hypocrisy and empty ambitions of grind culture.

What a total delight it is to roam this (almost) empty building with Brandi Wells' cleaner who is always peering (and neatening) the surfaces of people's lives and finding so much depth in there to mess with - Here's a new and key addition to office fiction and a thrilling debut novel by a propulsive voice.

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