Clean
A story of addiction, recovery and the removal of stubborn stains
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Clean
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Narrated by:
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Laurence Bouvard
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By:
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Michele Kirsch
About this listen
2020 winner of the Christopher Bland Prize
When Michele Kirsch's father is killed in a train crash, her mother gets the vapours and Michele gets extremely nervous. By her mid-teens, she has found salvation in valium. Her favourite words on the prescription sheet are 'Take as Needed', which she interprets as Take All the Time.
Later, as a wife and mother, she adds alcohol into the mix, and before long her life is spinning out of control. Leaving home 'for the sake of the family', she takes the scenic route to rehab, redemption and reinvention.
But this is no misery memoir. Clean is a darkly comic tale about the difficult choices we have to make as we navigate our lives. While working as a domestic cleaner in her 50s, Michele finds herself living vicariously through other people's messes, tidying her way through early sobriety. As the Duster of Large Things, she taps in to her natural nosiness to reveal the absurdities of a seemingly banal job.
©2020 Michele Kirsch (P)2020 Orion Publishing Group LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor", a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,719
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,403
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Lily Bradley is a respected psychotherapist married to a distinguished professor. They live in a dream house with their two children in close-knit Story Cove. Lily lives a well-ordered life. Or so it seems. As a therapist, she knows everyone keeps things hidden. Even her. Then sensual and free-spirited Arwen Harper rolls into town in her hand-painted VW van, her sixteen-year-old son riding shotgun. Overnight, Story Cove’s secrets are no longer safe. Because Arwen might know her new neighbors better than they know themselves.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I’m left speechless!!
- By Reggie on 03-12-22
Critic reviews
"Beautifully crafted and written, filled with darkness and light, compelling...She fights addiction with honesty and humour. And, like her, [we] come away changed forever." (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, RSL Christopher Bland Prize)