The biography explores the life of a trauma cleaner, detailing her experiences in managing the aftermath of death and disaster. It highlights her resilience and the emotional complexities of her work, as well as the unique challenges she faces in helping families reclaim their spaces. The narrative delves into themes of grief, healing, and the human capacity to confront trauma, offering a poignant look at a profession often hidden from public view.
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 loungeroom. 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.
This book is about ghosts and gods and flying saucers; certainty in the absence of knowledge; how the stories we tell ourselves to deal with the distance between the world as it is and as we'd like it to be can stunt us or save us.From award-winning author Sarah Krasnostein comes an exploration of the power of belief.What do we believe?Who do we believe?Why do we believe?Sarah Krasnostein spent the last four years in Australia and the US talking to some extraordinary people-people holding fast to belief, even as it rubs against the grain of more accepted realities. Some of them believe in things most people don't. Ghosts. UFOs. Heaven and the Devil. The literal creation of the universe in six days. Some of them believe in things most people would like to. Dying with autonomy. Spending half your life in prison for protecting your child and yet still believing in a just God.In this intensely personal and gorgeously written new book Krasnostein, the bestselling, multi-award-winning author of The Trauma Cleaner, talks with her trademark compassion and empathy to these believers-and finds out what happens when their beliefs crash into her own.
Discover some amazing animals that live only in Australia. From furry koalas to hopping kangaroos, this series is sure to fascinate young readers.
Discover some amazing animals that live only in Australia. From furry koalas to hopping kangaroos, this series is sure to fascinate young readers.