The Maid

 By Nita Prose

Ballantine     2022

304 pages     Mystery

I have been pondering all day how to approach my look at The Maid by Nita Prose. I can say that it was an easy, quick read, but that wouldn’t quite do it justice. The most important aspect of the novel is the main character and narrator, Molly, who at 25 is a maid at a five-star hotel in an unnamed city. What sets her apart from other protagonists is that she is definitely on the autism spectrum—something you don’t often see in novels. I particularly remember The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon.

Raised by her grandmother, Molly is a room maid, obsessive in her ability to create a perfect hotel room with every smudge removed, every last hair out of the shower, every corner dusted, and every pillow perfectly plumped. Although we learn perhaps more than we might care to know about hotel rooms and their cleanliness, we early come to understand that Molly finds all her worth in her work. She has a hard time understanding the people around her, but she is the best maid in the building.

More importantly, she realizes that she has trouble reading people’s faces or understanding their intent. She has always relied on her grandmother to narrate the world for her, and now that her grandmother has died, she feels herself very much alone, although she carries on her life just as it has always been. The ordered world that she must inhabit in order to function is upended when she finds the body of Mr. Black, a frequent resident at the hotel, and the husband of Giselle, with whom Molly has become friendly. Molly is considered to be a suspect in the murder, and as she struggles to untangle the web of deceit in the hotel, she finds that she has friends. These friends unite with her to solve the case of Mr. Black’s murder. In many ways, the plot is like a game of Clue.

The other characters in the novel are seen through Molly’s eyes, and she has a hard time interpreting their relationship to her. The NPR reviewer suggests that one of the delights in reading The Maid is watching the “hectic cast of characters unravel” as the crime is properly solved. I also appreciated so much watching Molly mature and learn how the world works and watching her grow in her understanding of people and circumstances.

This is Nita Prose’s first novel and hopefully it won’t be her last. She has had a career as a Canadian book editor, which is evidenced in the way the book is composed—a week in the life of a hotel maid—and in the skilled way the plot evolves. Her understanding of the way Molly functions and her ability to help the reader understand the mind of a person on the autism spectrum is brilliant. I want Molly to solve more crimes. A Canadian reviewer says, “The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.”

Harlem Shuffle

 By Colson Whitehead

Doubleday     2021

336 pages     Thriller/Noir

Where to start? First of all: an apology. I had not read either of Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, The Underground Railroad or Nickel Boys when I began Harlem Shuffle. And I can’t believe my ignorance of such an incredible author! I started the year with probably the most engaging book I will read all year.

Here is the brief synopsis from the Amazon website. “Colson Whitehead’s latest is a blisteringly entertaining novel of schemers and dreamers, mobsters and crooks, elaborate heists and furniture fronts, and the thrilling mischief of those who are up to no good and others who are just trying to make a living. Caught between his family’s penchant for shady deals and his desire to be clean, Ray Carney sits at the center of this swirling drama set in 1960s Harlem. A tribute to the city, the momentum of life, and the duality that lies in each of us, Harlem Shuffle is a lot of fun to read and another great offering by two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author Colson Whitehead”

Ray Carney is a marvelously-developed character. The moral dilemma he presents is so real, so present that the reader almost forgets that the book takes place in the 1960s. Except the 1960s are ever present in the background of the plot: the protests, the gentrification of New York City, the development of the World Trade Center. The marvelous review in The Atlantic comments on this:

“In the moral universe of Harlem Shuffle, the honest in honest work is literal. The novel privileges the perspectives of its avowed criminals—thieves, mobsters, and prostitutes, all candid about the nature of their profession—over those who have convinced themselves that their dubious machinations are ethical, which is to say bankers, real-estate developers, and the suits who work to find them loopholes.” 

I think the thing that impressed and amazed me the most is the density, creativity, and the brilliance of the writing. I found myself laughing at many of the comments of the characters or the description of a particular setting. Here is one description of Ray Carney’s career. “An outside observer might get the idea that Carney trafficked quite frequently in stolen goods, but that’s not how he saw it. There was a natural flow of goods in and out and through people’s lives, from here to there, a churn of property, and Ray Carney facilitated that churn. As a middleman. Legit.” Or the description of a waitress:  “Certainly she hadn’t quit show business, waitressing being a line of work where you had to play to even the cheapest of seats.” Whitehead describes Times Square around midnight as an” incandescent, stupefying bazaar.”

This is not your typical noir fiction because the subject is far more universal than that. Today, for instance, I greeted two acquaintances who are honest in the same way Ray and his buddies are honest—they are just trying to make a buck, feed their families, and put gas in their cars. If, on occasion, they deal in questionable behavior, well, it is all part of the gig. I recognized the characters Ray and Pepper and Freddy and Linus in the Kalamazoo characters Walt and Lawrence and Ken who call me looking for work. Vox calls Harlem Shuffle a morality play. It is indeed.

On the other hand, I found it a difficult book to get through, in part, because of the number of characters to keep track of and also because I wanted to savor every word. I’d start each reading thinking to myself, “Where was I?” I absorbed the history of New York City in the brilliant way Whitehead presented that history in the same way the citizens of Harlem and the rest of the city absorbed the history—the good, the bad, and the ugly!

I think anyone who wants to read brilliant fiction should read Harlem Shuffle, but be prepared to devote your heart and soul into the book—and also a lot of time. Harlem Shuffle demands everything you’ve got!

The Best of 2021

 

I read many fewer books this year than I have read since I began writing about books. Is my age catching up with me?  On the other hand, I am more proud of my list than I have been some years. And I also made a vow to myself to only read books I want to read, and because I have so many books waiting for me, I have got a lot of reading to do.

So, anyway, here are my favorites of 2021.

Best Fiction of the year

Interior Chinatown by  Charles Yu

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Historical Fiction

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Memoir

Three Girls from Bronzeville by Dawn Turner

Nonfiction

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

Spiritual

In Praise of Retreat by Kirsteen MacLeod

Women Rowing North by Mary Pipher