The Trauma Cleaner
One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay and Disaster
Sarah Krasnostein


MY RATING ⭐️⭐️▫️▫️▫️
PUBLISHER St. Martin’s Press
PUBLISHED April 10, 2018

REVIEW
This story found within the pages of THE TRAUMA CLEANER One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster was unexpected. I thought the book was about cleaning up after deaths, crime scenes, and hoarders and how one woman fights the good fight to do this. I didn’t know I would be reading about the horrendous childhood and difficult life of this woman who was born as a boy. I didn’t know I’d be reading about the details of her sex change operation and her rough life in the brothels. And while Sandra Pankhurst should be admired for her perseverance anD her compassion in her cleaning business, the book tries to cover to much and goes to far.

It is interesting that an author would even attempt a full life biography of a woman with a self-professed faulty memory, and then continue to remind the reader that this or that may not be accurate throughout the book. It casts doubt on the entire story. Author Sarah Krasnostein is very much a part of the book and the story. She followed Sandra Pankhurst to various cleaning scenes over a four year period. At the end of the first chapter Krasnostein describes this book as a love letter to Sandra. Krasnostein’s admiration and affection for Sandra is apparent through the book, with such sentiment as: “I have the rapturous experience, many times, of simply listening to her swear.”

The chapters which deal with trauma cleaning are seemingly told by Krasnostein as the observer. But by placing herself in the story she gets in the way. These chapter are interesting, but are little more than a documentation of what Krasnostein sees. The chapters which reveal Sandra’s life history are told from a third person point of view and while gut-wrenching, held little interest given the expectation from the title. The transitions in point of view from chapter to chapter make the book a little difficult to read.

The writing was also difficult to follow, requiring frequent rereading of pages and paragraphs to determine who was speaking or who was being discussed. There are an immense number of people and name changes referenced in the book and keeping up with everyone adds to the struggle. THE TRAUMA CLEANER was a trying read.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Of course, Sandra’s skill at making others feel secure also eliminates a whole host of threats to herself and optimizes her ability to move forward with her work and with her life, because Sandra is a virtuoso at survival."

This is the sort of true life story that makes me ashamed of all the things I get depressed thinking of or complain about in my life, that seem so much bigger than me at the moment. Sandra is a virtuoso at survival, without a doubt. Reading about her early years as a little boy was one of the most disturbing cruelties I have ever read, and it doesn’t really get easier as she navigates the rest of her life. This book gave me pause, I chewed over so many misconceptions so many of us have about the transgender community. Imagine the struggle in someone Sandra’s age, when it was far more brutal to be anything that deviated from the ‘norm’, when it was criminal. Sure, we’ve come further… sort of.

How does the human spirit survive so many cruelties? Is it any wonder she put up a protective shield? Yet, Sandra in her career is the most compassionate person in dealing with the hoarding, the filth so many of us would be shocked by. She has a delicacy few can master, and while this book certainly touches on trauma cleaning, death and decay the true trauma is what Sandra has endured and continues to endure. None of the mountains of trash or excrement nor human blood disturbed me half as much as the inhumanity Sandra has been victim to or witnessed.

She has been many people, lived many lives and maybe her memories are distorted because she’s had to abandon her old selves to stay afloat. A son first, starved for food and affection, a loyal brother despite any reason he should be, a hopeful father just trying to be ‘normal’, trying to escape the true self dying to be freed, a drag queen, a prostitute, a victim, a trophy wife and a businesswoman! Yes, Sandra Pankhurst brings order to chaos, but it’s her humanity that makes her so highly regarded in her field. How is it she isn’t poisoned by all the rot she’s been exposed to, that’s been forced on and in her? Or maybe she is, maybe her inability to get deeply close to any one person is the poison’s lasting effect. Still, she is an amazing woman who rather than turning her horrifying experiences into hatred for others, found a way to lift those so many others turn their backs on, and rises to the challenge that defeats so many of us.

I thought about her children and first wife, as we readers have the leisure to do when it’s a stranger’s life we can pass judgement on, and I wondered what the options were. What if Sandra stayed and pretended her entire life? What if times were different and she could have remained a presence? How can we know what is the right choice? Certainly she had her wild times, many can see it as escaping the responsibility her ex was left to shoulder alone, but then… but then… the horrors of trying to embrace the female inside of her, who would call any of what she endured easy? Escape? She was a caged thing for such a long time, blame the times if you will, or the brutal abuses by her parents (and can you really call them parents), call her selfish or an abomination(because some will) but never imagine being Sandra was ‘easy’. What does it say about us as human beings when we force those who are different to crawl for a living, that when they need help, they are viewed as less than human?

My heart was bleeding for Sandra, but also for those who tried to love her. She tried to be normal, create a family and hurt others in the process, but she is a wound herself. It’s a strange thing, to be so strong for others, for strangers and so distant to those who you’ve brought into this world, distant from a husband you love, if not desire… This is the only way she can live in her skin, this is how Sandra found her true self and it cost her far more than a pound of flesh.

I felt compassion for her clients, seen through Sandra’s eyes how can the reader not see that really, take away the garbage and it’s all about fears, which we all have. Take into account mental health, who of us can truly say our minds are without their own pitfalls? It’s easy to look at people who are all alone, look down on the “crazy person” living with rats, sleeping on garbage, and dehumanize them, not imagine there has been some trauma that altered the trajectory of their life. To have compassion means you aren’t as removed from the state they are in as you tell yourself and that’s a scary thought. The same could be said for the horror of living inside a body that is a prison, I cannot even fathom the pain of it, reading this book is just a taste. I can step away and move along with my life, so I’ll never fully comprehend what such a life encompasses. We think we’re so far from tragedy, ruin, but life is nothing if not a lottery. It could always be you.

Publication Date: April 10, 2018

St. Martin’s Press

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an e-ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review. I feel a bit like my 3 stars is out of the norm of the reviews, but I wanted to be honest. It's a good debut, and I was really very interested in the subject matter...so kudos to the author for that. I wish there was less about the author's biography and more about the trauma cleaning. It's an interesting read, though, and I would recommend it.

This book was so much more than I was expecting. It was the story of a woman in Australia who runs a business that cleans up after traumas. But it was also the memoir of a trans woman who was abused as a child and kicked out of her house at 17 to make her own way. This story was heartbreaking but also uplifting. The horrible things she went through, to come through in the end to be a cheerful and happy woman who spends her life making other people feel better.
There were some formatting issues and abrupt transitions, but hopefully they will be cleaned up in the final version.

Thank you, Netgalley, for the opportunity to preview this title. I found the writing to be sensitive and empathetic; I found myself really caring about the life story of Sandra Pankhurst. After an abusive childhood and tumultuous young adulthood, she eventually found herself -- someone who had been traumatized on numerous levels -- helping "create order out of chaos" by cleaning death scenes, squalid hoarder homes, etc. I appreciated that this book focused not just on Pankhurst's clients, but upon the woman herself.

Ahoy there me mateys! Though this log’s focus is on sci-fi, fantasy, and young adult, this Captain does have broader reading tastes. So occasionally I will share some novels that I enjoyed that are off the charts (a non sci-fi, fantasy, or young adult novel), as it were. I received this non-fiction eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here be me honest musings . . .

the trauma cleaner (Sarah Krasnostein)

Title: the trauma cleaner: one woman's extraordinary life in the business of death, decay, and disaster

Author: Sarah Krasnostein

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Publication Date: April 10, 2018 (hardback/ebook)

ISBN: 978-1250101204

Source: NetGalley

I discovered this book looking into St. Martin's Press' releases because I previously read castle of water which was one of me favourite reads of 2017. One of me odd jobs back in the day was helping a company who organized houses. They needed more people to help with a specific hoarder's house and I needed extra funds so I signed up. To say it was an eye-opening experience into that specific mental illness in an understatement. So what in the world must trauma cleaning be like? I honestly expected this book to have a lighter tone to it like stiff does about the business of dead bodies. I somehow thought it would be funny yet respectful. While the book was extremely respectful and had funny moments, it turned out to be a heart-wrenching tale of one woman, Sandra's, amazing journey to survive and thrive in life.

If ye expect this book is going to be about the "trauma" as seemingly indicated in the title, ye might be mistaken. The book does look into "living clients," the hoarder aspect of the job in particular, using extremely vivid imagery about smells, trash, and the difficulties of getting people to let go of clutter. It does not deal as greatly with the aspects of the job like industrial clean up or murder scenes. Perhaps that it is to help the reader because the author's turn of phrase, while sometimes lyrical, is so stark and effective at times. But ultimately there is plenty of trauma in dealing with Sandra's life story. It is seemingly more harsh then cleaning murder scenes. It seems crazy to say that but that's what it felt like to this reader.

Ye see Sandra's life started out rough and it seems like a miracle that she not only survived but became the thoughtful wonderful person found in the pages of this biography. She was born a male in Australia, abandoned as an infant, and then adopted by a Catholic family. This family was no picnic. The father was an abusive alcoholic. The family eventually had more blood-related children after adopting Sandra, which, in combination with the belief that their son might be homosexual, led to a life of hell. Ugh. I won't get into the rest of the details here. Makes me stomach clench just to think of it. As the blurb states, before she was a trauma cleaner, "Sandra Pankhurst was many things: husband and father, drag queen, gender reassignment patient, sex worker, small businesswoman, trophy wife." She was one of the first patients to have gender reassignment surgery in the 1980s.

It was the portrayal of life as a non-conforming society individual that I found as compelling as I did heart-breaking. While Sandra's life seems to have had love and joy in it, there also seemed to be a pervading sense of self-doubt, denial, and pain. It is the pain that lingered throughout the tale and made it a hard read. I have amazing respect for the journey and am grateful to have read this book. I highly recommend it but only wish that I had felt more joy in how Sandra's life ultimately has turned out in the end.

So lastly . . .

Thank you St. Martin's Press!

Side note: there are some very interesting articles out there in relation to this novel. Some recommendations:

STC Services - Sandra's business website

the Guardian

the Herald Sun

Daily Mail - be forewarned that the headline is a little lurid and the article tells a lot of the plot of the book but it has the photos talked about but not found in me copy of the book

Netgalley's website has this to say about the novel:

Before she was a trauma cleaner, Sandra Pankhurst was many things: husband and father, drag queen, gender reassignment patient, sex worker, small businesswoman, trophy wife. . . But as a little boy, raised in violence and excluded from the family home, she just wanted to belong. Now she believes her clients deserve no less.

A woman who sleeps among garbage she has not put out for forty years. A man who bled quietly to death in his living room. A woman who lives with rats, random debris and terrified delusion. The still life of a home vacated by accidental overdose.

Sarah Krasnostein has watched the extraordinary Sandra Pankhurst bring order and care to these, the living and the dead—and the book she has written is equally extraordinary. Not just the compelling story of a fascinating life among lives of desperation, but an affirmation that, as isolated as we may feel, we are all in this together.

To visit the author’s Goodreads page go to:

Sarah Krasnostein - Author

To buy the novel go to:

the trauma cleaner - Book

To add to Goodreads go to:

Yer Ports for Plunder List

First off: the title, blurb and cover are not really discriptive of this book. It does have elements of life as a trauma cleaner, but it goes much deeper than that. This is a non-fiction recounting of the life and times of Sandra Parkhurst, whose many identities are explored by the author. The writing and tone reminds me a great deal of Susan Orleans’ The Orchid Thief. A complex, unputdownable book about a truly interesting life. Highly recommended.

The Trauma Cleaner is a deftly-woven portrait of a fascinating woman. I fear it deviates into the cisgender gaze, but ultimately it seems clear that the author truly loves and respects her subject.

I started this book thinking it would be a relatively simple, trauma cleaner's eye view of the business of cleaning up after death has left a bloody/oozy,/foul stain in its wake. What I didn't expect was the incredible life story of Sandra Pankhurst, and her truly remarkable life.
Born male ,after enduring an abusive childhood, he marries and has children, but is drawn to affairs with men, wearing women's clothes, then being a drag queen and then full gender reassignment, with prostitution, destitution drug abuse, violence and alcohol peppering her transition along the way. Set against the backdrop of the rapidly evolving cultural norms of Australia in the latter half of the last century, her story is truly incredible.
Told in flashbacks from her admittedly drug-muddled memory, it's a fascinating story, and includes so much craziness that if it was a fictional account it would be dismissed for being too over the top, But this is Sandra's real life and we are all the more enriched for her sharing it with us.
Interspersed with the flashbacks are stories from her current life as a successful businesswoman running a trauma cleaning service. Having cleaned up her own life, she now dedicates to cleaning up other people's deaths, providing a sympathetic support for those left behind. In the land of the living, she also helps compulsive hoarders try and dig themselves out of their own squalor.
This is a truly fascinating and phenomenal read. Sandra is an extremely lovable character, whose awful childhood goes a long way towards explaining her own trauma from which she needed to be cleansed. Hugely recommended.

I liked this book a lot, though I do feel it was a little sloppy in places. Some paragraphs needed a sentence or two to transition from one topic to the next. I would find myself re-reading a passage to see if there was something I had missed. I also felt it was a little off-putting when the author would directly address Sandra throughout the book. It took me away from feeling as though *I* was the intended audience for the story.

Having said that, however, I really liked the story. I liked the idea of having one chapter be Sandra's life story and then the next chapter be about a client she was helping. I was very impressed by Sandra's compassion and lack of judgement for people, especially having had such a hard life herself. I wish this was a documentary! I would love to watch her at work and how she interacts with people on a daily basis.

I thought that this book was going to be about trauma cleaning, cleaning up blood, homicides, hoarders, etc. Yet this was a book about one female, Sandra, and her life story. Although the life is messy and the author does not help at all in clearing up some of the information, for instance all of the name changes! Overall, its an okay book about one person who is transgendered but I felt that it took away from the title of the book, The Trauma Cleaner..

The Trauma Cleaner is the biography of a singular person: Sandra Pankhurst, transsexual, former prostitute (with a heart of gold), and current proprietor of a business whose mission is to clean up death scenes and homes in squalor. It is a remarkable journey, as Pankhurst overcomes a childhood of neglect and years of transition and poor health to become the hard-driving, if somewhat forgetful, businesswoman she is today. Interspersed with her story are chapters dealing with the hoarders and dead people Pankhurst's company cleans up after. This part struck me as being a little voyeuristic.

This narrative brings to mind this epigram, which is often erroneously attributed to Plato: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Highly recommended.

Please note that I received an electronic copy of this book to review from NetGalley, but I was not financially compensated in any way. The opinions expressed are my own and are based on my observations while reading this book.

"The Trauma Cleaner" is mainly a biography of the person currently going under the name Sandra Pankhurst. He was born a boy, was adopted as a baby into an abusive family, married, and had children before abandoning his family to pursue life as a female. During this period, he went by several different names and did a variety of jobs, including drag queen and prostitute. He underwent gender reassignment surgery to become a woman and has had a very eventful life since then. Due to drug abuse in her past, Sandra has gaps in her memory. The author pointed out some spots where Sandra hasn't accurately remembered what happened, so I assume the author double-checked to make sure the story was reasonably accurate.

In addition to the story of Sandra's past, we're told about her current health problems and her job as a trauma cleaner. She's the person you call to get a house cleaned up in cases of flooding, hoarding, and death. The author watched the start of several clean-up jobs, most of them involving hoarding. She described in detail what the rooms looked like (the items on the counter, what was written or molding on the wall, etc.). She also provided some of the person's story as to why it got this bad and described how Sandra convinced the customer to let them clean as they're still not ready to let go of the rubbish.

When I requested a review copy of this book, it was described as a book about cleaning up these places (and I was curious about how it's done). We get hints about how it's done throughout the eight job scene chapters, but these details would only fill up a few pages--at most, a chapter--when put together. So I was disappointed. This book is more for those interested in the lives of people coping the best they can (though generally not very well) with the trauma in their lives.

Wow--what to say about The Trauma Cleaner, by Sarah Krasnostein? Maybe the subtitle says it all: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay and Disaster. This biography recounts the life of Sandra Pankhurst, a most unusual person who transitioned from man/husband/father to become a sex worker and small businesswoman. Sandra's experiences make her uniquely qualified to perform her work, which includes uncluttering the homes of hoarders, cleaning up crime scenes, restoring flooded homes and businesses and much more. She has endured abuse, bullying, drug addiction, rejection and loss, but she has learned to demonstrate the kind of compassion that's required for her line of work. This is a fascinating story about a caring woman who goes through the world with dignity and a commitment to excellence. What troubled me about this book, however, is Sarah's admitted inability to accurately remember parts of her own life. Was she 11 when a particular trauma occurred, or 7? That's just an example, and while i understand that drugs and hardship can cloud anyone's mind, the notion that she's not always a reliable narrator of her own story sometimes gave me pause. This is an interesting book about a little-known business and, perhaps, a hard-to-know individual.

I loved this book. The people involved were all very interesting and I found all of their individual stories really compelling.

I will first say that the description of the book was very misleading. I was disappointed at first but I was riveted by the book. I read it in two days, which is a big deal for me! The book is pitched as a story per chapter account of a business that provides trauma situation clean up. But in fact it is a biography of a survivor of a very difficult life (major understatement) whose current career is an owner of a trauma clean up business. Sandra has had so many different jobs, several which added to her childhood trauma. What I was looking for was voyeuristic details of crime scenes and hoarders homes. What I found was a person who crossed every unimaginable barrier to live her true life, at all costs. What an inspiration!

This book was simply fascinating! I was immediately drawn into it from the very first page. The author's minute descriptions of characters and scene literally transported me there. I started and read this book in an entire rainy New England day because it was that good! The delicate subject of trauma cleanup was handled with tact, a bit if humor and left me utterly fascinated to learn more. I'm looking forward to more if this author.

The cover is so great, isn’t it? The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein is next up on my list. You really don’t hear too much about the people who come in after a tragedy and clean up, do you? The only other time I’ve seen this topic mentioned was in the movie Sunshine Cleaning.

I’m very intrigued with this topic and the reviews for the book are all positive raving about the author’s amazing ability to capture the story behind the scene.

Take a look:

Do you know who cleans up a murder scene? It’s not the police or the paramedics. It’s people like Sandra Pankhurst, a trauma cleaner for whom death and decay are a part of life. Sandra’s trauma work includes crime scenes and floods, real estate agents, executors of deceased estates, and charitable organizations. All call on Sandra to deal with lonely deaths, suicides or cases of long-term property neglect, where homes have fallen into disrepute due to the occupier’s mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, aging, or physical disability. Sandra comes to know her clients as well as they know themselves; she airs out their smells, throws out their weird porn, their photos, their letters, the last traces of their DNA entombed in soaps and toothbrushes. She does not, however, erase these people. She couldn’t. She has experienced their same sorrows.

This is the fascinating true story of what happens after a disaster; what happens when the dust clears and all that’s left is a mess to clean up? You call Sandra, who arrives to make order out of chaos.

I’m gearing up for any traumatic and troubling details which are to be expected in a book about cleaning up crime scenes. But I know this is going to be one of those books where I can’t stop reading and will be raving about it when I’m done.

I am very iinterested in anything about the trauma cleanup. This book did open my eyes to the cleaning of differnt types, ie: drug overdose, etc. The book was an ok read. I would have liked to read more about the actual clean-ups and less about the author's life as a transgender. The book also goes into details about his life as a man, marriage , children, etc. The books title leads you to believe that the book is about trauma cleaning. Yes, the book was about that, but to me focused more on her life. Yes, Sandra Pankhurst has had a rough life, and i applaud her for keeping on, but if I wanted to read her life story, I think that should have been a seperate book. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

While I thought the book was very interesting, the ending wasn't satisfying. I would have liked to know how Sandra's health is now, and whether she is still working.