Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, And A Mother'S Will To Survive

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, And A Mother'S Will To Survive

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"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 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.Review"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 2019 Summer Reading List"President Barack Obama, Summer Reading List (2019)Forbes, Most Anticipated Books of the YearGlamour, Best Books of the YearTime, 11 New Books to Read This JanuaryVulture, 8 New Books You Should Read This JanuaryThrillist, All the Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2019USA Today, 5 New Books Not to MissAmazon, Best Books of the MonthDetroit News, New Books to Look Forward to in 2019The Missoulian, Best Books of the MonthSan Diego Entertainer, Books to Kick Off Your New YearPeople, Perfect for Your Book ClubBoston.com, 20 Books to Look Out for in 2019Hello Giggles, Best New Books to Read This WeekNewsweek, Best Books of 2019 So FarCNN Travel, Books You Should Read This SummerMental Floss, Summer Reading ListBookTrib, Books That Will Make You Look Smart at the Beach!"More than any book in recent memory, Land nails the sheer terror that comes with being poor, the exhausting vigilance of knowing that any misstep or twist of fate will push you deeper into the hole."?The Boston Globe"Stephanie Lands memoir [Maid] is a bracing one."?The Atlantic"An eye-opening journey into the lives of the working poor."?People, Perfect for Your Book Club"The particulars of Land's struggle are sobering, but it's the impression of precariousness that is most memorable."?The New Yorker"[Land's] book has the needed quality of reversing the direction of the gaze. Some people who employ domestic labor will read her account. Will they see themselves in her descriptions of her clients? Will they offer their employees the meager respect Land fantasizes about? Land survived the hardship of her years as a maid, her body exhausted and her brain filled with bleak arithmetic, to offer her testimony. It's worth listening to."?New York Times Book Review"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."?Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist and