Sarah Krasnostein The Trauma Cleaner

[Hazel]

As a huge crime fan, serial killer...I hate to use the word fan...and fan of the macabre in general, I picked up this book interested in reading about the day to day life of those people who clean up after real life crimes, but this book is so much more than that, in fact it was very, very little about that. Sarah Krasnostein meets Sandra Pankhurst, a business owner who cleans up crime scenes and hoarders' houses. She does this with love and without judgment. She has the gift of the gab, immediately empathetic, sympathetic and reassuring dealing with those who have mental health issues or impacted by a traumatic death close to them.

 

But Sandra is so much more than this. She is transgender. She was a prostitute. She was married to a woman. She was a father. She was an unwanted and abused son. And it is these section of her life that the book mainly focuses on. It is a difficult read. You are sympathetic one minute, angry the next. How could she walk out on her children? How could her family treat her so badly? How could men treat her so badly? How can she make amends? Why doesn't she try harder to make amends? How can she be so ambivalent about her children? So many questions, so many conflicting emotions? But you admire her. Ultimately, that's how I felt about Sandra. Well worth the read.