Maid (by Stephanie Land)

(Amazon UK link)

I had never heard of Stephanie Land, and probably would have continued in my ignorance, had it not been that her biographical book ‘Maid’ was listed as this month’s read for our local reading group. I managed to acquire it from the Awesome Books site last year, and have been reading it over the past few days. I finished a few hours before the reading group met.

It’s hard to know what to say about it without sounding judgemental, and that’s not intended at all - at least, not of the author’s life as portrayed in the book. She opens by stating baldly that her toddler daughter took her first steps in a homeless shelter. It sets the tone for the book. They move out of the shelter to a very unsatisfactory flat - several moves happen during the course of the 360 or so pages that tell the story of the most difficult years in the author’s life. But none of them is ideal.

Stephanie Land apparently kept journals, some of them on her computer, as she worked as a cleaner through her daughter’s first five years. So there’s a kind of raw honesty that does come through, as she recounts her days, and some of her problems. I could certainly feel some sympathy for her: she grew up in quite a dysfunctional family who were unable to help her much. Then she was in a relationship that led to her becoming pregnant with her daughter Mia, but it became abusive and she walked out. In addition, she lives in the United States, where even basic medical care is expensive and - as becomes abundantly clear - cleaners are often ignored, while the impoverished are apparently despised or taunted.

There’s the potential for quite a moving book, as the author describes problems she encounters in the places she lives, and her struggles to bring up her daughter in a relatively stable environment. Unfortunately, this human interest side doesn’t much come through. She mentions that Mia’s father is abusive more than once, but doesn’t say how or what happened. I didn’t want anything gratuitous, but there was no clue as to what kind of abuse was involved. And since she regularly leaves Mia with him, the asides mentioning his abuse don’t really make sense. I would have felt more empathy if she had at least recounted some of their conversations, or hinted at what he did that she considered so negative. He’s clearly manipulative - but the implication is something much worse.

However, the bulk of the book is about the various cleaning jobs the author undertakes. She works for an agency some of the time, and is regarded as one of their best workers. She explains her techniques, and it’s evident that she is extremely good at cleaning, and cares about doing an excellent job. I could admire that, and in the first couple of houses she describes, I got something of an idea of how hard she worked. I could not comprehend why someone who cleans disgusting bathrooms is considered inferior to the people who make them disgusting - but that seems to be part of the culture.

Unfortunately, there are descriptions of house after house… all different in the author’s mind, of course, some with far more dirt than others, some with friendlier people than others. But they all began to merge in my mind. Perhaps she was intending to give an impression of the mindless work, day after day, doing the same kind of thing… but it didn’t make for interesting reading at all. I started skimming, really not wanting to know about yet another toilet or bathtub.

Towards the end the book becomes a bit more interesting. There’s a dramatic chapter involving a mermaid toy belonging to the author’s daughter. The writing in that section is more tense, more active as she writes about what she sees and feels, and there’s poignancy as well as other emotions. But even then, after the event that occurs, it’s back to recounting of information rather than showing the drama or conversations that would bring the author and her acquaintances to life.

Discussing it in the group, later, we nearly all felt much the same - we did feel sorry for the author, and perhaps would have complained ourselves if we’d been in the same situation. But she seems to have little financial acumen. When she gets unexpected bonuses, she goes out and spends most of them immediately rather than dealing with her debts. A tax rebate towards the end allows her to buy some essential household equipment and pay off a credit card… but she then blows more of it on luxuries, including one extravagant purchase which none of us could understand.

We all wanted to feel more in tune with the author, to have some empathy rather than distant sympathy. None of us had been in those circumstances, but then none of us grew up in the United States, where it’s not considered important to look after one’s own child. So Stephanie Land had to work long hours, including some very lengthy commutes, with the majority of her money being spent on petrol, car insurance and maintenance, and daycare for her daughter. And of course medical care in the US is expensive, and it’s even harder to get welfare payments than it is in Europe.

It was good to read this book from the educational perspective, and hopefully a good thing for people to realise that the US has such a terrible poverty problem (one of the worst in the developed world, apparently). It’s a book that has been read widely and has plenty of fans; perhaps people in the United States would find it more relevant, knowing some of the places and organisations mentioned. Hopefully it has opened people’s eyes to the difficulties experienced by single mothers without supportive families: if it makes people more understanding, and more willing to acknowledge their needs and respect them, it’s done a good job.

But I doubt if I’ll read it again.

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