NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND INSPIRATION FOR THE NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES, HAILED BY ROLLING STONE AS “A GREAT ONE.” “A single mother’s personal, unflinching look at America’s class divide, a description of the tightrope many families walk just to get by, and a reminder of the dignity of all work.”-PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, Obama’s Summer Reading ListAt 28, Stephanie Land’s dreams of attending a … List
At 28, Stephanie Land’s dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer quickly dissolved when a summer fling turned into an unplanned pregnancy. Before long, she found herself a single mother, scraping by as a housekeeper to make ends meet.
Maid is an emotionally raw, masterful account of Stephanie’s years spent in service to upper middle class America as a “nameless ghost” who quietly shared in her clients’ triumphs, tragedies, and deepest secrets. Driven to carve out a better life for her family, she cleaned by day and took online classes by night, writing relentlessly as she worked toward earning a college degree. She wrote of the true stories that weren’t being told: of living on food stamps and WIC coupons, of government programs that barely provided housing, of aloof government employees who shamed her for receiving what little assistance she did. Above all else, she wrote about pursuing the myth of the American Dream from the poverty line, all the while slashing through deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor.
Maid is Stephanie’s story, but it’s not hers alone. It is an inspiring testament to the courage, determination, and ultimate strength of the human spirit.
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What this book does well is illuminate the struggles of poverty and single-motherhood, the unrelenting frustration of having no safety net, the ways in which our society is systemically designed to keep impoverished people mired in poverty, the indignity of poverty by way of unmovable bureaucracy, and people’s lousy attitudes toward poor people. Land’s prose is vivid and engaging… A tightly-focused, well-written memoir… an incredibly worthwhile read.
The best book I’ve read so far in 2019. A work of art that shows just how difficult it is for those on the bottom rungs of society, who are largely invisible and forgotten. A poignant reminder that these people are human, too, and should be treated with respect. An excellent read. Highly recommended for everyone.
Stephanie Land’s heartrending book, Maid, provides a trenchant reminder that something is amiss with the American Dream and gives voice to the millions of ‘working poor’ toiling in a country that needs them but doesn’t want to see them. A sad and hopeful tale of being on the outside looking in, the author makes us wonder how’d we fare scrubbing and vacuuming away the detritus of an affluence that always seems beyond reach.
“Poverty was like a stagnant pool of mud that pulled at our feet and refused to let go.” from Maid by Stephanie Land
I’ll be brutally honest, and you can “unfollow” me if you want, I don’t care, but ever since Presidents Roosevelt and Johnson created social programs to help the poor there have been politicians determined to slash, limit, and end them. And one of their methods is to vilify the poor as blood-sucking, lazy, ignorant, “self-entitled” criminals who live off the hard earned tax dollars squeezed from hard-working, honest, salt-of-the-earth, red-blooded Americans.
I have known some of “those people,” and yes, they sometimes made bad choices, but they also worked to improve their lives. Like my cousin who ran away at sixteen and returned, pregnant, without a high school degree. She was on welfare and food stamps. She also got a GED and learned to drive and found a job…which was eliminated by budget cuts. After floundering for some time, she found work again, and even love. Then died young of a horrible autoimmune disease.
Or the couple who worked abroad to teach English as a second language to pay off their school debts, then returned to America and could not find jobs. The wife returned to school for an advanced degree. She graduated after the economy tanked and still could not find work in her area. They relied on WIC when their child was born. They have lived in poverty their entire marriage, the woman working for ETS and online tutoring.
Stephanie Land had dreams, hoping some day to go to college. Her parents had split up, her mom’s husband resentful and her dad broke because of the recession. She was self-supporting when she became pregnant. When she decided to keep her baby her boyfriend became abusive. She was driven to take her daughter and leave him.
And so began her descent into the world of homelessness, poverty, the red-tape web of government programs. She worked as a maid, even though she suffered from a pinched nerve and back pain and allergies. The pay was miserable, her travel expenses uncovered. She found housing that was inadequate, unsafe, and unhealthy. Black mold kept her daughter perpetually sick with sinus and ear infections.
I know about that. Our infant son was ill most of the year with allergies, sinus infections, ad ear infections. It made him fussy and overactive and every time he was sick it made his development lag. We were lucky. We could address the environmental causes. We found a specialist who treated him throughout his childhood.
Maid is Stephanie Land’s story of those years when she struggled to provide for her daughter. She documents how hard it is to obtain assistance and even the knowledge of what aid is available, the everlasting exhaustion of having to work full time, taking her daughter to and from daycare, and raise her child on a razor-thin budget. All while cleaning the large homes of strangers.
And that is the other side of the book, the people who hire help at less than minimum wage, some who show consideration and others who like her invisible. How a maid knows more about her clients than they can imagine.
Land worked hard. Really hard. She had to. Finally, she was able to go to school and write this book. She crawled out of the mire. What is amazing is that anyone can escape poverty. You earn a few dollars more and you lose benefits.
Land is an excellent writer. She created scenes that broke my heart, such as when her mother and her new husband come to help Land move. Her mom suggests they go out to lunch, then expects Land to pay for the meal. Land had $10 left until the end of the month. Even knowing this, they accepted it. Then, her mom’s husband complained Land acted ‘entitled’. I was so angry! I felt heartbroken that Land and her daughter were shown so little charity.
I think about the Universal Basic Income idea that I have read about. How if Land received $1,000 a month she would have been able to provide her daughter with quality daycare or healthy housing. She would have been able to spend more time on her degree and work fewer weekends. She would have been off government assistance years sooner.
But that’s not how the system works. Because we don’t trust poor people to do the right thing. We don’t trust them to want to have a better life. We don’t believe they are willing to work hard–work at all.
Remember The Ghost of Christmas Present who shows Scrooge the children hiding under his robes, Ignorance and
Want? We have the power to end ignorance and want. We choose not to. Instead, we tell people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, even when they are without shoes.
That’s my rant. Yes, progressive liberal stuff. But also in the spirit of the Christ who told us that if we have two shirts, give one to the poor. The Christ who said not to judge other’s faults and ignore your larger ones–judging being the larger one. The Christ who taught mercy to strangers.
Perhaps Land’s memoir will make people take a second look at mothers on assistance. Under the cinders is a princess striving to blossom.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
As a solo mom and former house cleaner, this brave book resonated with me on a very deep level. We live in a world where the solo mother is an incomplete story: adrift in the world without a partner, without support, without a grounding, centering (male) force. But women have been doing this since the dawn of time, and Stephanie Land is one of millions of solo moms forced to get blood from stone. She is at once an old and new kind of American hero. This memoir of resilience and love has never been more necessary.
Barack Obama loved this book, which was a good enough reason for me to pick it up. An interesting read while I’m resident in the USA. So much poverty is hidden in the affluent areas – only it’s not really hidden, it’s just ignored. It’s not talked about, not thought about even. Maid is a book that gives you a different view of the world. It’s unflinching and uncomfortable, vital and hopeful all at the same time. Want to see the world through a new pair of eyes? Then read this. Be prepared to understand that you will end up feeling as if you, at some point, have probably been guilty of some of what is unearthed here. It was a wake up call for me, and I’m glad I read it. A beautiful, tragic, provocative book that is essential reading.
Let me just preface this review with a solid authenticity award. Stephanie Land represented the situation with a true vision of poverty and how the plight of the poor affects their emotional and physical well-being… in so many more ways than people may know. I give her major props for writing to a specific truth and sticking to the facts.
Let me be clear: I liked this book ‘cause I’ve lived this book. I can validate her claims on so many levels that it was surreal to read it. Land gave readers a true-to-life account of what life is like not just as a single mother, but as a lower-class citizen facing the perpetual scorn of a society so imbued in economical hatred that they would rather see us die than see us at all. Like Land, I too have seen and read people’s faces, those nasty little expressions that say “they’re just the dirty little secret the family keeps locked away in a cottage down by the servant’s quarters.”
I applaud Land’s efforts to lay out such remarkable details, to dance naked on the pages of a reader’s lap, and allow herself to be fully exposed to a world that knows nothing of what it’s like live in a first-class nation, yet treated like a third-world refugee.
What the conservative world doesn’t realize is those representations of people on welfare presented on Fox News and other conservative media make up a small percentage of what the REAL working poor have to endure in their lives. They work endless hours, and yet still have to depend on the watchful eye of the government not to be too productive so they can take away food and childcare benefits.
This book is a solid representation, a walk in the thousand-mile shoes and a swim in the tears of poverty stricken Americans who have no other option but to choose the least bad choice for themselves and their family. Survival is always at stake and one false move, one blink of the eye could be the difference between life and death.
If I was able to give this a grade instead of a star rating, it would receive a 99%, only falling 1% short of perfect because we’re forced to make decisions with no right answers.
Stephanie Land created a truly haunting and accurate portrayal of America’s dirtiest secret: our silent hatred of poor folk and the shame we should feel for allowing the criminal hatred to exist!
I just hope Stephanie and Mia finally get to go Red Lobster and enjoy a meal without worrying about it cutting into their rent bill. I hope this novel gives her that freedom she and her daughter both deserve after all these years. My heart goes out to both of them, and her new child she announced in her acknowledgments after the story was over.
It is said that “God is in the details”. This is a vivid true story of a single Mom’s journey working in tbe underclass as a house cleaner. The daily grinding poverty, insensitive clients, abusive boyfriends, lack of a safety net. These stories of poverty and survival have already been told, but this author has a new way of telling it. Fantastic book.
Stephanie Land is a single mother with no safety net….for financial support or emotional support. It’s an eye opening memoir of the cycle of government assistance, poverty, and always one incident away from homelessness. Most of us live with safety nets. 10 bad incidents can occur-a fender bender, being laid off, a child with a fever-and don’t even have to think too much about it. Stephanie writes a beautiful story of clawing her way out of a lonely existence. While she is grateful for government assistance, the cycle that one can easily get in is tremendous. I never realized how the programs are set up so that people cannot save for money to be able to pull themselves out of it. Just being able to have a savings account is such a peace of mind.
She is a maid for a cleaning service and throughout her story she describes the houses and people she cleans for. I thought it was a fantastic way to write of her experience.
I recommend this book!
Marry the evocative first person narrative of Educated with the kind of social criticism seen in Nickel and Dimed and you’ll get a sense of the remarkable book you hold in your hands. In Maid, Stephanie Land, a gifted storyteller with an eye for details you’ll never forget, exposes what it’s like to exist in America as a single mother, working herself sick cleaning our dirty toilets, one missed paycheck away from destitution. It’s a perspective we seldom see represented firsthand — and one we so desperately need right now. Timely, urgent, and unforgettable, this is memoir at its very best.
It was very sad to learn how some people have to live. But a book that made realize how. Dry blessed I am, even with trials that Inface every day.
A little bit self pitying but a good read
Like the look it provided into a life I know nothing about let alone never experienced. There is also a Netflix mini series based on the book. Some of the scenarios and characters are different but still follow main storyline of the book. Very good.
Review published on Amazon
Too much emphasis on the “poor me” aspect. Some is fine, but I found it a bit much.
Land’s book is a gripping, realistic portrayal of what it’s like to be caught in the cracks of the system. The Netflix series goes down some weird roads that aren’t part of Land’s story, but does stay true to the rollercoaster Land faced in real life simply trying to feed her child. Everyone should read this and realize how hard life can be for so many of us, and how we turn a blind eye to those struggles time and time again. Be nice to the waiter, the janitor, the maid, and anyone else who is doing ridiculously hard work for way too little pay. Land’s story is haunting and unforgettable.
The author worked very hard to put herself through college. So did I. I was so frustrated with her when she kept getting pregnant. She said her tattoo artist told her that hand tattoos were “job killers.” Why would she do that when she’d worked so hard to get through college? It was an interesting and informative book. I think she’s a very good writer. I read the book several years ago when it came out. Today I tried to find out what she is doing now, hoping that things have improved for her, but I was unsuccessful in my search.
I mostly liked this book because of the stories about the families and the homes they lived in, because some other parts of this book made me ponder the belief that hot tubs and internet and cell phones and Happy Meals and television are luxuries in life, not necessities. But I haven’t been in her shoes nor in her situations. I have been helped by I guess you could say “the system,” for a time, and it does feel bad in some ways, and it also feels like something you’re so thankful for, and then thankful to be done with, not ashamed of, because you used it for what it exists for, and no other reason. I am glad, however, that she got to write and was such a hard worker and saw herself through it, and had some friends and client who cared. I think whether she knew it or not, it was God who provided. I am especially glad that she got to write her book and share some stories. I had never heard of this book before but was looking for something more realistic. It truly is a true story, and a hard one, full of hard work and hardship…with exactly that, a mother’s will to survive.
I’ve been a house cleaner too but not for years and fortunately I had the privilege of an education that helped me escape the world of underpaid domestic workers. She describes how life is without an cushion to help you through inevitable problems.
How to review this book? It’s the memoir of a woman living in poverty with her very young child, dependent on government assistance to survive — a woman who always wanted to be a writer and finally does earn a college degree in creative writing — a woman who, with this memoir, is now a published writer. To support herself and her child along the way — and to satisfy the prerequisite for receiving government aid — this single mother works as a maid.
Interesting premise? Yes. Reviews referred to it as “an important memoir,” “an unapologetic account,” and “a beautiful, uplifting story of resilience and survival.”
I wanted to feel some of that about Maid, but I struggled. By nature, I’m an optimist. I see the glass as half full. The author does not. For her, the glass is half empty. The studio apartment she rents for herself and her child has black mold. The clients who pay her to clean are gross. The caseworkers who see that she gets food stamps are insulting. Customers behind her in line at the supermarket are condescending.
I’m not sure what I expected. But it wasn’t endless negativity. Despite the lengths to which the author went to describe her horrible life, I couldn’t feel sorry for her. She felt sorry enough for herself. Part of the problem for me was that I listened to the Audible version of this book, which the author herself read. So when I heard self-pity, I believed it.
One last thought. I know women who clean homes. Yes, it’s a dirty job. And no, I wouldn’t want to do it. But the women I know who do it, like that they work mother’s hours, like that they make a mirror shine, like that they earn money.
One more last thought. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this author chose to keep working a job she so detested. It seemed to be one more bad choice in a life full of them (an issue she doesn’t explore). She worked as a maid earlier in her life, long before she was homeless, and knew what it entailed – not the least being that it often pays sub-minimum wage. And hey, I agree that even minimum wage is way too low. I regularly vote to raise it. But until that happens, I have to think that there are other jobs for minimum wage that this woman might like better. No?
I feel like an unsympathetic curmudgeon posting this review. I will say that the writing of Maid is competent. Hence three stars, rather than two.