(all the characters in the book have initials only), who appears briefly in the last section of “What Belongs to You.” The effect for the reader of both books is of a kind of surround sound of reality and a profound sense of the fluidity of time. The books overlap in voice and place and also in time - the central relationship in “Cleanness” is with a man named R. This is one of the many elements of Greenwell’s genius, to have created two books that speak to each other but do not need or take anything from each other. Readers of the first book will hear the echo, but readers who haven’t won’t miss it. It is a story that echoes back to one told in Greenwell’s previous and critically acclaimed first novel, “What Belongs to You,” which shares the same narrator as “Cleanness” and is also set in Bulgaria. In the opening cafe scene, in answer to the teacher’s question, the student tells a story of a recent experience with unrequited love.
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