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A Good Morning America Book Club Pick
A New York Times Most Anticipated Books of Fall
From the New York Times bestselling author who inspired the hit Netflix series about a struggling mother barely making ends meet as a housecleaner, a "raw and inspiring" (People) memoir about college, motherhood, poverty, and life after Maid.
When Stephanie Land set out to write her memoir Maid, she never could have imagined what was to come. Handpicked by President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2019, he called it an "unflinching look at America's class divide...and a reminder of the dignity of all work." Later, it was adapted into the hit Netflix series Maid, which was viewed by sixty-seven million households and was Netflix's fourth most-watched show in 2021, garnering three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. Stephanie's escape out of poverty and abuse in search of a better life inspired millions.
Maid was a story about a housecleaner, but it was also a story about a woman with a dream. In Class, Land takes us with her as she finishes college and pursues her writing career. Facing barriers at every turn including a byzantine loan system, food insecurity, the judgments of professors and fellow students who didn't understand the demands of attending college while under the poverty line—Land finds a way to survive once again, finally graduating in her mid-thirties.
Class paints an intimate and heartbreaking portrait of motherhood as it converges and often conflicts with personal desire and professional ambition. Who has the right to create art? Who has the right to go to college? And what kind of work is valued in our culture? In clear, candid, and moving prose, Class grapples with these questions, offering a searing indictment of America's educational system and an inspiring testimony of a mother's triumph against all odds.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
November 7, 2023 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781797164205
- File size: 245519 KB
- Duration: 08:31:29
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from July 24, 2023
Bestseller Land (Maid) catalogs her experiences juggling housecleaning jobs, childcare, and graduate school while battling poverty in this frank and captivating memoir. In lucid prose (“My whole body ached to give her more. She deserved ballet lessons if she wanted them and for someone to show her that it was okay to dream”), Land details the many tightropes she walked to balance her dreams of becoming a writer with what she “needed to do to survive as a single parent who struggled to make ends meet in endless, sometimes impossible ways.” After escaping an abusive relationship in her late 20s, Land moved from Washington State to Missoula, Mont., with her five-year-old daughter to pursue an MFA in writing. In the fall of her final year at the University of Montana, she unexpectedly got pregnant again and decided to keep the baby, to the consternation of the likely father. Land viscerally conjures the relentless grind she faced to obtain governmental aid and increased child support to cover food, heat, car repairs, childcare, and student loans while fighting to keep her daughter happy and her unborn child healthy without sacrificing her own professional dreams. Eye-opening and heartrending, this will provide succor for readers who’ve faced similar hardships and essential education for anyone who hasn’t. It’s another stirring personal history from one of the foremost chroniclers of 21st-century economic anxiety. Agent: Mollie Glick, CAA. -
Stephanie Land, who wrote MAID, had a laser-focused goal to succeed as a writer, and this memoir proves that in spades. Her presentation of her life, which included an abusive husband, an unpredictable father to her daughter, and financial challenges, would send anyone over the edge. It all got her down, but she never gave up. Land's exacting words and notable phrasing immerse listeners in a story of poverty, including the sacrifices she made to graduate from college and then get a Master of Fine Arts so she could write for a living. She concludes with an epilogue explaining her current successes. Fans of her previous work will be drawn to this memoir for its honesty, integrity, and candor. E.E.S. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine -
March 1, 2024
Land's first memoir, Maid, told the story of how she navigated harrowing economic circumstances and supported her daughter by cleaning houses. Her latest memoir continues where she left off, having moved to Missoula, MT, from Washington State. Though she had hoped for some measure of financial security, she once again finds herself cleaning houses and relying on various forms of public aid to support herself and her children as she finishes her college degree. Narrating her own memoir, Land movingly communicates the bone-deep fatigue and pressure of her life, stretched thin by work and the stress of trying to be a good mother and student and achieve her dreams of being a writer. Land expressively describes the frustration of navigating government bureaucracy one moment and trying to make sense of a complicated and often oblivious academic world the next. VERDICT This deeply touching memoir sheds light on the seemingly insurmountable challenges encountered by impoverished people seeking better lives for themselves and their families. Fans of Maid and the Netflix series inspired by the book will want to listen to this.--Susan Cox
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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