Exposes...contemporary cultural fault lines that are just as destabilizing and, in their immediacy, more urgent ... In another writer’s hands, Clean would be a good-enough parable about inequality and domestic work. But Trabucco Zerán is masterful at plunging the reader into the murky depths of her characters’ psyches and at rendering disquieting acts with sangfroid ... Deeply compelling ... Haunting.
A novel more interested in both the power and limits of storytelling. Is it even possible for Estela to tell her story in a way that will compel those in power to listen? How are we revealed by the stories we choose to believe in, and the stories we turn away from?
Extraordinary ... Brilliant ... An intense novel about class and power and the kind of deep down rot that lingers, despite the most vigorous scrubbing.
Vivid ... A rich and compelling read ... Uncomfortable and provocative, Clean is a chilling account of one woman’s struggle to find meaning in the menial, but also an indictment of a society’s overreliance on the unacknowledged exploitation of its domestic workers.
Static, interiorized, claustrophobic ... The register is slower, simpler, the confession of one small, stalled person who nevertheless longs for her voice to be heard.
While Zerán’s uncomfortable, fascinating, lovely, and affecting novel is set in contemporary Santiago, Chile, Hughes’ splendid translation assures it will resonate in many more places where people live with the alienation and superficiality of late-stage capitalism.
Wears thin, and the suspense never really materializes. Her treatment of the theme of class differences is shallow, and the character development just isn’t there. A novel that can’t get itself off the ground.
