Garth Greenwell, _Cleanness_

 I FEEL WARY when a book gets described as a novel-in-short-stories. Since novels sell much better than do collections of stories, I wonder if the designation is merely opportunistic marketing; since stories can be sold individually to periodicals as well as to the book’s publishers, I wonder if the author has merely found a way to be paid twice for the same work. 

My skepticism is not entirely vanquished in this instance, but I will concede that a legitimate case can be made. Cleanness feels like a novel in several ways.

For one, the narrative point of view stays the same from story to story—that of a young gay expat American writer making a living by teaching in a former Soviet bloc country (Bulgaria). Indeed, the narrator could well be that of Greenwell’s previous book, What Belongs to You, only a few years older and more comfortable in the local culture, language, and customs.

For another, there are several recurring characters from story to story: the narrator’s students and colleagues, each designated solely by an initial, and most importantly R., a Portuguese man with whom the narrator has a sustained affair, although they break up when R. decides he cannot quite make a go of things in Bulgaria.  

Finally and crucially, the collection does not have an arc, exactly, as the stories are not arranged in chronological order, but it does have an architecture. The nine stories are presented in three groups of the three. The middle trio all concern the narrator and R., and the mood is contented and balanced. Their relationship seems to be in a happy equilibrium, especially in the group’s middle story, “The Frog King,” the one with the most detailed sex scene.

In the first trio, set both before and after the advent of R., the narrator is subordinated, we might say, to the   goals and wishes of others—not necessarily sexually, since the first story is about a very demanding student, but sexually as well, as again the middle story has a very detailed sex scene.

In the closing three stories, the narrator’s will predominates—these stories are mainly about what he wants, who he wants to be. Again, the middle story of the group gives us this will-to-power version of the narrator in a detailed (and somewhat alarming) sex scene.

Maybe there is an arc after all—for something is percolating in the narrator before, during, and after the relationship with R. that has to do with laying the ghost of an abusive father, achieving mastery, and attaining self-understanding. 

So you probably could read it as a novel—if you did not just skip to the hot parts.