Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature, Sarah Krasnostein’s The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster is the fascinating biography of one of the people responsible for tidying up homes in the wake of natural–and unnatural–catastrophes and fatalities. Homicides and suicides, fires and floods, hoarders and addicts. When properties are … floods, hoarders and addicts. When properties are damaged or neglected, it falls to Sandra Pankhurst, founder of Specialized Trauma Cleaning (STC) Services Pty. Ltd. to sift through the ashes or sweep up the mess of a person’s life or death. Her clients include law enforcement, real estate agents, executors of deceased estates, and charitable organizations representing victimized, mentally ill, elderly, and physically disabled people. In houses and buildings that have fallen into disrepair, Sandra airs out residents’ smells, throws out their weird porn, their photos, their letters, the last traces of their DNA entombed in soaps and toothbrushes.
The remnants and mementoes of these people’s lives resonate with Sandra. Before she began professionally cleaning up their traumas, she experienced her own. First, as a little boy, raised in violence and excluded from the family home. Then as a husband and father, drag queen, gender reassignment patient, sex worker, small businesswoman, and trophy wife. In each role she played, all Sandra wanted to do was belong.
The Trauma Cleaner is the extraordinary true story of an extraordinary person dedicated to making order out of chaos with compassion, revealing the common ground Sandra Pankhurst–and everyone–shares with those struck by tragedy.
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Last year I sat next to a bookseller on a plane from Sydney to Melbourne. Naturally, we chatted about books and when I asked her for her top recommendation, she gave me The Trauma Cleaner.
Like many others I thought this was a book about cleaning up the gruesome consequences of someone else’s mess. But this book is so much more. It’s an almost voyeuristic examination and insight into a number of people whose houses are so bad that specialist industrial cleaners are needed.
It almost seems fictionalised, surely no-one can live like that. Yet, as fantastical as it might seem, the author is clear about one thing. Nothing is exaggerated. And she should know as she went on the road to see for herself.
“As the heartwood of a tree sings to you of thousands of sunlit days and rainy hours – specific symphonies of soil and the seasons of weathering and revival that will grant you the structural strength to reach for your share of the light – the rotten core of Dorothy’s house is a whispered scream that hurtles you backwards through decades of pitch darkness.”
And so starts the chapter about Dorothy who has lived in squalor for most of her life.
We learn in detail about the owner of one such business, Sandra, the woman who was born a man and the trauma of her life and how she’s coped. Sandra has the ability to put those whose lives have been affected by trauma at ease and because of her perfectionistic tendencies is serious about leaving her clients better than she found them.
Throughout these stories about Sandra’s clients, the author skilfully opens the door on Sandra’s own life as an adopted child who was different but never accepted by her family; of her struggle for identity and love and acceptance as a transgender woman who stood up to the establishment and lived her life her own way.
This is an astonishing memoir, beautifully written. In parts we are shocked by what human beings are capable of, good and bad and the effect on others. Sandra could have made very different choices but her fight and zest for life outweighed all the other demons she carried.
This is a very different book and if it makes you uncomfortable then I think that must be a good thing. This one will stay with me for a long time.
This book was prescribed in a bibliotherapy session and coincidentally read while cleaning out my own home of twenty years. Trigger alert if you are, or ever had to deal with a hoarder. The core word to describe this narrator’s view of Sandra, The Trauma Cleaner is compassion. To understand and forgive anything and everything about your fellow human requires a glimpse back into what made them who they are in the present. Sandra is anything and everything BUT what she appears to be and therefore is the perfect trauma cleaner, treating each client’s situation with understanding and is never judgmental. Her antidote for trauma is a little bit of love and a lot of order. I am so intrigued by the mental deterioration that causes people to hold onto things, in fact to have their external surroundings mirror their internal chaos. This book hit me at a very tender spot and filled me with compassion for all the people I’ve loved whose homes have mirrored their internal chaos, it also shone a light on why I insist on order to a fault, why I attempt to control my environment and refuse to hold onto everything. I perverse companion read to Marie Kondo haha.
This is essentially two books intertwined. One is about a person who was worse than neglected as a child and never really fit in anywhere, including gender assignment. I think that this saga is the more horrific. The other is about the under appreciated services provided by those who are tasked with cleaning the aftermath of murder, neglect, and more. This is something that few people have to see and smell besides law enforcement and certain types of social workers. The amazing thing is how kind and empathetic Sandra is to the living and the stresses they face despite her own terrible history. I certainly don’t mean that her employees are unkind, and I surely couldn’t do their jobs. The book is well written, but also very difficult to read because of its content. People need to be aware of the long lasting harm done to some people and also of the incredible people who come in and clean up in unbelievable situations.
I requested and received a free review copy via NetGalley.
In 2020 I was able to buy a permanent audio copy and feel that the narrator is truly exceptional.
Not what I expected.
Subject not for everyone. Kinda creepy at times but interesting. Never gave much thought about what happens after a murder or suicide or a violent death. This book explains.
Life is stranger than fiction, goes the cliche. Vetted thoroughly as non-fiction based on a real person, this book often reads like a horror novel. From trauma, Sandra Pankhurst creates order with empathy and intelligence. Her transgender life as a prostitute makes an amazing backstory to a woman who is too incredible to be a fictional heroine. I will never again read a graphic novel of murder and mayhem without thinking about what we never see on the page: Who cleans up after such bloody traumas?
Interesting perspective on cleaning up homes or other structures that have been in a death. It also had the authors personal life issues and how it was handled. I did enjoy this book.
This is her life story. She sounds like someone I wish I knew. Tragic and quite inspirational that she has a caring and nurturing personality. Complex, and fascinating.
I just didn’t find this book to be easily read or enjoyable.
Equal parts hoarder stories and biography of a transgender person.
What a great book. This lady’s life is incredible and no matter what, she never gives up.
This covered not just cleaning up other people’s messes but what it’s like to be Other, transgender, gay, ? It was an eye opener for me, and I suspect for other readers as well. How does one justify finding one’s true self, while crushing the lives of others? There wasn’t a good answer but the story was compelling. This is a story of the author’s messy life as well.
A powerful story about a person who survived more horrors than most of us can even imagine and still dedicates their life to helping others with compassion and kindness. We could all learn a lot from her.
I was prepared to be fascinated by some weird cleaning stories. There were a few of those but they were eclipsed by this mans horrific lifestory. I did not like being blindsided by terribly violents stories of her time in a brothel. Could not finish the book and felt it was misrepresented in the synopsis.
Transgender Australian decides to get into the cleaning business. Cleaning after suicides, murders and unexpected deaths. The book is more about the character, however and how he suffered due to his sexuality.
Not what I expected. Mostly story about the owners sex change and the difficulty adjusting.
I thought this would be a book about the business of cleaning after accidents, hoarders, and tragedies. But it’s really about the life of an incredibly strong woman who started her life in a man’s body. I haven’t finished it yet, but I hope she accomplished everything she wants
Not what I expected. It is a sad memoir of the trauma cleaner’s life. I thought it would be more true crime like. Still, very well written, interesting protagonist.
I didn’t care for it.
An absolutely haunting book. Particularly because it’s all true. I recommend it highly.