Sue P

The Cleaner
by Brandi Wells

I enjoyed reading this book about a cleaner who works at night in a mostly empty building. During the day its desk-filled floors are occupied by office workers. The cleaner takes a lot of pride in her work, even though the people she cleans up after never seem to notice her hard work. Although she is invisible to the people she cleans up after, she wants to feel connected to them. So she imagines personalities and solves imaginary problems of the people who occupy all those desks, fantasizing what it would be like to earn their appreciation and friendship.

Soon those imaginary personalities become more and more real to the cleaner. As the unseen cleaner goes about vacuuming and wiping down the office surfaces, she begins making subtle changes that can alter the day-to-day course of a worker's life. This book is often funny but also fascinatingly disturbing.