GARTH GREENWELL
Author, writer & poetAs told to Thomas Stichbury
American author Garth Greenwell’s debut novel, What Belongs to You, about a writer’s love affair with a hustler, became a queer literary touchstone. Earlier this year, he released its sexually charged follow-up, Cleanness. “It’s about intimacy of various kinds,” he says. “I hope it breaks down easy ideas of ‘cleanness’ and ‘filth’, and I hope it argues that repression is never a good idea, and that our challenge is to imagine a life that can accommodate all our contradictions.” Garth, 42, who initially trained to be an opera singer, lives in Iowa City with his partner, poet Luis Muñoz. “I’ve built a life I never could have imagined for myself,” he says.