It is interesting that an author would even attempt a full life biography of a woman with a self-professed faulty memory, and then continue to remind the reader that this or that may not be accurate throughout the book. It casts doubt on the entire story. Author Sarah Krasnostein is very much a part of the book and the story. She followed Sandra Pankhurst to various cleaning scenes over a four year period. At the end of the first chapter Krasnostein describes this book as a love letter to Sandra. Krasnostein’s admiration and affection for Sandra is apparent through the book, with such sentiment as: “I have the rapturous experience, many times, of simply listening to her swear.” In some ways, the narrative arc of the book is not Sandra’s own journey, but Krasnostein’s understanding of Sandra and what she represents for all of us. This is achieved with a lightness of touch, the author never getting in the way of the reader’s own interpretations. My favourite parts were in the present, following Sandra and her empathy while dealing with her clients. I appreciated the way in which Krasnostein painted vivid pictures of very difficult living situations while avoiding sounding voyeuristic. The women Sandra became has my utmost respect even if she has done some horrible things to get there. Her life story is an interesting and in parts harrowing one, and it is a story that is well worth knowing. You get to hear the hoarders’ stories, and they fascinated me. Their stinky piles reflect a unique and mystifying psychology. What were the hoarders like, pre-stink? What do they think about it all now? Do they feel good or bad when their house is clean? I thought I was going to read a story about a woman’s career cleaning up after crime scenes and traumatic events — with details into the heady disarray and gore that is often left behind for loved ones to take care of, even in the wake of disaster. I was thinking Mary Roach-like stories, but instead, this book is more biography of a woman who is currently in the business of trauma cleaning. There is gore, and there is trauma, but it is matched by telling the story of Sandra Pankhurst.

I loved this book, I initially wanted to read it because I am a fan of books about the macabre, serial killers and the clean-up after. Lastly, I do feel the need to point out that this book contains some seriously harrowing scenes; there is one rather lengthy and detailed rape in the middle of the book that might be triggering for some readers. Unlike Sandra, I identify with the gender assigned to me at birth. I was loved and protected and cared for by people who (generally speaking) had their act together when it came to parenting. I was sheltered from anything different or criminal or “other” than the traditional white nuclear family way of life. Krasnostein has done a clean-up of her own, untangling the narrative behind Pankhurst’s own cluttered memories…She lets Pankhurst’s courage, humanity and sheer decency shine through. It’s a fascinating read.’Marilyn was witty and well-read, but her world was falling in on her. She did have cancer, she was probably alcoholic. This was the physical manifestation of the pain and isolation in which she was living. In each of the jobs was the unsettling sense of pain and mental illness. A transgender former prostitute cleans up the fetid houses of the psychotic, the hopeless and the murdered. Sounds like some dubious TLC special, but it’s a fascinating bio of Sandra Pankhurst… Revelatory.” — People Please be aware that the delivery time frame may vary according to the area of delivery - the approximate delivery time is usually between 1-2 business days.

Krasnostein’s playful yet heartfelt debut is one of the most arresting works of biography you will read in a long time.’ Sarah Krasnostein job is to sort through the hoard and make sense of the mess that is Pankhurst’s life. That’s not an easy task, as Parkhurst isn’t the best historian. What Kranostein salvages are pieces of an extremely traumatic life, which are by the mound. In a sense Sarah IS a trauma cleaner, and like hoarders who don’t throw anything away, Pankhurst wants to keep the painful details of her life to herself. But what we do glean from Pankhurt’s life is that it is a miracle that she survived it. Pankurst’s] story is probably one of the most touching, thoughtful and thought-provoking you will ever read…Sarah Krasnostein tells it with moving compassion, even love.’Alas for me, I was never as fascinated by Sandra as Sarah thought I ought to be. It seemed all the time as if she could have done without Sarah’s endless attempts to reconstruct her many adventures. You can almost hear her saying “But darl, that’s all a long time ago, and who gives a rat’s ass for it, I sure don’t.” Pankhurst is an engaging, sympathetic, and fascinating person, and Krasnostein does an excellent job of balancing Pankhurst's personal story with those of her clients."— LitHub C rimereads Through countless encounters with the fetid, the neglected, and the downright tragic, Parkhurst has found meaning and peace, and [author] Krasnostein a singular subject whom she approaches with well-deserved awe." — Booklist (starred)

This isn’t a bad book, you know its heart is in the right place, but Sarah does not do herself any favours with her real florid prose. At the drop of a hat she will rhapsodise about Sandramuch less about her business: The founder of Specialized Trauma Cleaning services in Melbourne, Australia. Krasnostein has spent over three years trying to get to know Sandra, tagging along cleaning jobs, interviewing a few people, attempting to piece together the puzzle this woman is. It's fair to say that we all are unreliable narrators, especially when our own lives are concerned. Sandra Pankhurst is the ultimate unreliable narrator, especially since she'd lost years of memories, some probably repressed, but mostly due to damage to her brain caused by years of heavy doses of hormones, drugs and alcohol. And this is where the fascination lies, for Krasnostein, and thus for the reader. How does someone so traumatised that she can't remember vast swathes of her own life, so traumatised that she finds it difficult to allow people to care for her, manage to care for others? How has she, rather than her clients, come through? Where does her resilience come from? The other thing I kept thinking while reading was “why didn’t James Frey do this when he wrote his “memoir”?????” Remember James Frey and his million little pieces that made Oprah all . . . .