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Cleaner

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

By: Brandi Wells

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Paperback | 25 April 2024 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
336 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.7 x 12.9 x 2.4

Paperback

$29.75

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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, the cleaner begins her shift. If she didn't leave everything so spotless you'd never even know she'd been there - but she knows all about you.

She knows about the self-help books that Sad Intern hides in her desk, alongside ever-multiplying supplements designed to make her seem less sad. She knows about Mr Buff's secret smoking habit, which she's going to help him kick. She's fond of you all, and she's got more influence over your lives than you could possibly know.

And one night, while lazily scrolling through emails on the CEO's computer, she'll discover some shady dealings that put the entire company - her realm - at risk of closure.

She has no intention of allowing that to happen.

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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