Changes

|title=The Cleaner of Chartres

|sort=Cleaner of Chartres, The

|publisher=Viking

|date=November 2012

|summary=A novel whose qualities are impossible to pin down, beyond the excellent invention of the title character and the tragedies she underwent decades ago.

}}

Agnes is a mystery to the residents of Chartres, even as she goes about filling any shortfall in labour here, doing any odd job there, and cleaning for some of the people in and around the fabulous cathedral the town is so proud of – and, even in the end, cleaning the cathedral itself. There is an aged, dotty professor from Wales, two extremely curmudgeonly and bitter old gossips, and more than enough members of the order whose faith has lapsed. She seems perfectly willing to do anything one asks, so much so that one might ask why, although nobody seems to do so. The answers might be in the even-numbered chapters, which take us deeper into this character's extraordinary past, and to a linked series of quite tragic events…