Maid, Stephanie Land
Maid, Stephanie Land
24 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
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Maid
Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive

Bestseller

Author: Stephanie Land, Barbara Ehrenreich

Narrator: Stephanie Land

Unabridged: 8 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Hachette Books

Published: 01/22/2019


Synopsis

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 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.
 

Author Bio

Stephanie Land is the author of Class and the New York Times bestseller Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, which inspired the Netflix series Maid and was called “a testimony…worth listening to” by The New York Times. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and many other outlets. Her writing focuses on social and economic justice and parenting under the poverty line. She is a frequent speaker at colleges and national advocacy organizations. Find out more at @Stepville or Stepville.com.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Katie on October 12, 2021

“I WORK 25 HOURS A WEEK AS A PROFESSIONAL CLEANER, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO PAY THE BILLS.” (Page 131) Going into this book, I so badly wanted to come out rooting for Stephanie Land, but I keep coming back to that quote above and cannot wrap my head around what should be “surprising” about her story. A......more

Goodreads review by Roxane on July 30, 2018

This book is going to garner a range of reactions when it’s published. 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......more

Goodreads review by Cindy on September 03, 2021

I appreciate the emphasis on what it’s like to be in poverty, from the logistical struggles to the emotional turmoil that comes with being financially burdened. Not to mention the stigma that gets associated with people who depend on government assistance and the homeless. My upbringing has fostered......more

Goodreads review by karen on November 14, 2019

oooh, goodreads choice awards semifinalist for BEST MEMOIR & AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2019! what will happen? ********************************************** fulfilling book riot's 2018 read harder challenge task #14: A book of social science this one might be more memoir than social science, but it's ehrenreich-a......more

Goodreads review by Yun on April 25, 2020

Maid is Stephanie Land's memoir of her arduous and often back-breaking journey to claw herself out of poverty and to find a place of belonging and financial stability for her and her young daughter. It details her desperation to take on any menial jobs available to make ends meet while being a singl......more