Maid by Stephanie Land *****

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land is a memoir and the basis for a Netflix series. A better title might be Parenting and Poverty in America. In telling her story about being a single mother, cleaning houses for minimum wage, the author presents the difficulty of qualifying for and surviving on financial assistance. At one point she received seven different forms of assistance which allowed her and her daughter to live in a place and eat a diet that brought tears to my eyes. In addition, her life included scorn by friends and strangers alike, including doctors and teachers, and a healthy portion of self-loathing. Warning: Reading this might cause you to feel empathy for people who receive government assistance and struggle with minimum-wage employment.

As horrific as the author’s life was, she had grown up in the suburbs, was white, and had a plan to escape her poverty which included going to college. This increased her odds of success.  She is wealthy today. “I had grown up in the suburbs—a privilege that perhaps created my confidence that things would get better… Many of my decisions came from an assumption that things would, eventually, start to improve.”

Poverty came with many negative assumptions. “I’d attended a three-hour seminar on how to use electricity most efficiently. The information was so redundant and common-sense, … learning how to turn off the lights was required in order to receive a grant for $400 of heating fuel. More and more, I got the feeling that people who needed government assistance were assumed to be a very uneducated bunch and were treated accordingly.” Also, “It seemed like no matter how much I tried to prove otherwise, “poor” was always associated with dirty.” And, “Anyone who used food stamps didn’t work hard enough or made bad decisions to put them in that lower-class place. It was like people thought it was on purpose and that we cheated the system, stealing the money they paid toward taxes to rob the government of funds. More than ever, it seemed, taxpayers—including my client—thought their money subsidized food for lazy poor people.”

People who listen say, “I don’t know how you do it.”

Many people offered direct charity, but these small gifts didn’t address the real problems of living in poverty. “Accepting their small token—a new pair of gloves, a toy—in their impulse to feel good. But there wasn’t any way to put “health care” or “childcare” on a list.”

The author benefited from knowing how to advocate for herself. “By filling out several forms, I finally convinced them to lower my bill through a program they offered for low-income patients. All I had to do was call and ask. It always struck me that programs like that were never mentioned.”

Useless advice from the doctor, “Then you need to move.” “I can’t,” I said, putting my hand on Mia’s leg. “I can’t afford anything else.” “Well,” she said, nodding at Mia, “she needs you to do better.”

Like J.K. Rowling Stephanie went from poverty to wealth through her writing. (Net worth a half million dollars, versus almost a billion for J.K.)

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The Maid by Nita Prose *****

The Maid by Nita Prose. A novel in three acts starring Molly the Maid. Innocence, Betrayal, Revenge. Molly Gray has ASD (she can’t recognize smiles nor read social cues) and OCD (she loves rules and routines). In the first act, she has her best job as a maid at a fancy hotel. She is invisible while she returns guest rooms to “perfection.” In the second act, she discovers that her “friends” have framed her for the murder of a hotel guest. In the third act, she epitomizes the saying: The best revenge is living well. (Basically the same plot as Revenge of the Nerds).

Molly Gray looks to others to help her navigate through her social interactions- interpreting smiles and understanding conversations. While her Gran lives, she follows her rules. When her Gran dies, she reaches out to everyone else to interpret the world for her. In the first two acts, most of these guides take advantage of her, ultimately framing her for the murder of hotel guest Mr. Black. In the third act, she finds some real friends (Doorman Mr. Preston, his lawyer daughter Charlotte, and dishwasher Juan Manuel) and they lead her out of trouble.

ONE-LINERS:

We are all the same in different ways.

The longer you live, the more you learn.

People are a mystery that can never be solved.

Life has a way of sorting itself out.

Everything will be okay in the end. If it is not okay, it is not the end.

SPOILERS FOLLOW:

However, she does three things on her own.

1.     When it is time, she suffocates her Gran with a pillow.

2.     She warns the second Mrs. Black that the police are after her, allowing Mrs. Black to flee the country.

3.     She never tells the police that she saw the first Mrs. Black holding the pillow that asphyxiated Mr. Black.

Though she can not read faces or social cues, she can still recognize the women in her life that need help and she reaches out to them on her own. Her allegiance to these women goes beyond her neurodivergent challenges.

On one level this is a book about a neurodivergent woman navigating life in the big city. On another level, this is a story about sisterhood overcoming all other challenges.

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Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams *****

The first edition of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) was published after 40 years in 1928. As a toddler, Esme Nicoll, played under the table where the men worked on the OED. When she grew up, she had a place at that table. In addition to OED, these years included women’s suffrage and World War I. This book is Esme’s story.

Esme soon realized that the OED only recorded the words of educated white, Victorian men. She made her life’s work to record the words of the rest of society, especially women—a dictionary of lost words. A beautiful story of women, dictionaries, and libraries.

Embroidery, proof of existence: “I guess I like to keep me hands busy,” Lizzie said. For a moment I forgot what I’d asked. “And it proves I exist,” she added. “But that’s silly. Of course you exist.” ... “I clean, I help with the cooking, I set the fires. Everything I do gets eaten or dirtied or burned—at the end of a day there’s no proof I’ve been here at all.”

Esme becoming a reader at the Bodleian: “Ordinarily, it would not be possible for you to become a reader, Esme. You are neither a scholar nor a student. But it is my intention to convince Mr. Nicholson that the Dictionary will be realized far sooner if you are permitted to come here and check quotations on our behalf.” “We can’t just borrow the books, Dr. Murray?” He turned and looked at me above his spectacles. “Not even the Queen is permitted to borrow from the Bodleian. Now, come.”

Esme recording quotations for her dictionary: “What did you write?” Lizzie asked. I read it to her and she reached for her crucifix. I wondered if I’d upset her. “Nothing I ever said has been written down,” she finally said. Then she got up and cleared the table.

The future: “Maybe it’s about time I became ‘more worldly,’ as you put it. Things are changing. Women don’t have to live lives determined by others. They have choices, and I choose not to live the rest of my days doing as I’m told and worrying about what people will think. That’s no life at all.”

When pregnant Esme’s friend Tilda urged her to marry the baby’s father, Bill: She held me a little tighter as she said it, and I didn’t move away. I’d thought about it. I’d imagined it. In my heart I was certain that Bill would do the right thing if he knew. That Tilda would make sure of it. I spoke as slowly and carefully as Lizzie just had. “I don’t love him, though. And I don’t want to be married.”

Small talk: Sarah never insisted on conversation and was unusually clumsy with small talk—she once responded to a comment on the weather by explaining the relationship between barometric pressure and rain.

Emse’s friend Lizzie appraises Esme’s boyfriend: We watched as he drank it down. When he finished, he took the glass to the sink and rinsed it. Lizzie looked at me in astonishment. … When Gareth left, Lizzie sat me down and washed my face. She brushed out my hair and rolled it back into a bun. “Never met a man like him,” she said. “Except maybe your da. He also rinses his cup.”

Esme to the Bodleian librarian when he refused to accept her book. “You are not the arbiter of knowledge, sir. You are its librarian.” I pushed Women’s Words across his desk. “It is not for you to judge the importance of these words, simply to allow others to do so.”

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Devoted by Dean Koontz *****

Devoted by Dean Koontz is a battle between silent geniuses. There are two good guys. Woody Bookman “had never spoken a word in his eleven years of life.” He “was the ultimate autodidact. He taught himself to read only a few months after his fourth birthday and was reading at college level three years later.” Kipp would have talked if he could. He was a golden retriever. He understood English and could read. He communicated with others of his kind (the Mysterium) telepathically over the “Wire.” There were fewer than one hundred of them.

On the other side was solitary Lee Shacket, in the employ of billionaire, entrepreneur Dorian Purcell to develop immortal transhumans. Lee was experimentally augmented through horizontal gene transfer to have all the best genes of all species at Refine. When the Refine laboratory was destroyed, Lee was the sole survivor. With his augmentation, he is ready to take all the power and hot women that he’d been previously denied. His obsession is Woody’s mother Megan who refused him to marry Woody’s father-subsequently murdered by Purcell.

Thus, the battle lines are drawn. A boy and his dog against the evil billionaire.