A review by hmatt
The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

2.0

Wow, what is this book? Genuinely... what is it supposed to be about? It's like the author is confused about whether to centre Sandra, trauma cleaning clients, or themself. They frequently diverge on tangents about their own past and traumas... why? I can see the logic for some inclusion of the trauma cleaning clients, to the point of illustrating Sandra's relationships and manner with them, but these chapters tend to veer off too deep into the clients' personal lives too. This is not even touching on how problematic the chapters on Sandra's past are. The author disclaims the accuracy of Sandra's memory, then goes on to describe most events in extreme (and often graphic) detail - so where are they getting this information from? This is really only disclosed in the chapters where Linda has provided additional detail. The telling of Sandra's upbringing is riddled with deadnaming and slurs, and I see why the author made this choice, but they really should have included a caveat preempting this and explaining why certain terms should no longer be used. TL;DR this is a messy, problematic biography that doesn't really know whose story it's trying to tell.

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