When my sister chose Nita Prose's The Maid to read for our book club, I thought it was Maid, the novel that became a gritty Netflix series. Naturally, I was relieved to find out that it wasn't that book. But once I started turning the pages of Prose's debut not-quite-whodunit, my concern returned.
Twenty-five-year-old Molly Gray is a maid at a fancy hotel. But she isn't a clock puncher eager to trade her Pledge for party clothes after her shift. Cleaning is Molly's life. She takes unparalleled joy in "returning rooms to a state of perfection" and maintains a rigorous home housework schedule in the tenement she shares with her grandmother. Molly and her grandmother are best friends. Actually, Gran is Molly's only friend. Her wisdom, often dispensed as aphorisms, helps Molly navigate the daily challenge of social situations as well as the sometimes not-so-nice (i.e. cruel) colleagues and guests she encounters.
So it isn't easy being Molly. And it gets more difficult when she finds a dead body while cleaning the penthouse. What happens next tests everything Molly knows -- and doesn't know -- about how people work. Their characters, their motivations, and their shockingly common tendency to bend the truth. Watching her forge through the forest that is this puzzle is painful, memories of her grandmother and other past moments mingling to reveal the extent of her struggles.
Prose's story isn't so much about solving a murder mystery, or even the mystery of Molly herself. It's about understanding -- and ultimately respecting -- people who are different. Because as Gran herself often says, "We're all the same in different ways." By placing Molly in a dangerous situation, Prose magnifies her otherness, rousing our sympathies. But she also shows us that Molly has the rare kind of courage that just might save the day.
Poignant and human and sometimes hard to read, The Maid is a metaphor for life's messes. In the end, I was glad we read it for book club.
If only as a little reminder that we're each equipped with our own kind of mop.
