A Review of Nita Prose’s “The Maid”
Molly Maid
The publisher behind Nita Prose’s debut novel, The Maid, is throwing an awful lot of firepower at reviewers in the hopes of bringing the book into the hands of as many readers as possible. I was one of many reviewers contacted on NetGalley — one of the places where I procure free books for review — about the novel, and the first 200 reviewers who inquired about it would automatically get a review copy. That’s how I wound up with the book on my Kindle. There might be a reason why the promotion is so heavy and buzz-worthy, aside from the fact that this is a generally good read. Prose (an obvious pen name, as her real name is Nita Pronovost) is the vice president and editorial director at Simon & Schuster in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Now it may be churlish of me to suggest that nepotism is at work here, but I do have to wonder if a writer who didn’t happen to have a major job in the Canadian publishing industry would get the same sort of promotional push. In the end, it probably shouldn’t matter as The Maid is a fun and wildly entertaining cozy mystery thriller. It does have its liabilities, but I wound up getting, well, swept away by the narrative and read most of it in a day.
The book centers on a 25-year-old woman named Molly who works as a maid at a tony hotel in an unnamed city presumably somewhere in North America. She is a bit different from most of the staffers at the hotel as she has, one would presume, a touch of autism — she has trouble reading facial expressions and picking up on social cues. One day, her life is upended when she finds the body of a wealthy tycoon in one of the suites she’s supposed to clean. However, Molly may or may not have misjudged the characters of some of the people she works with who may have reasons of their own to frame Molly for the crime — and, after all, she was the person who found the body and what about the fact that the room is clear of fingerprints but her own on the tycoon’s neck? Will she or will she not become a person of interest to the police? And, if so, how will she get out of the predicament when she doesn’t seem to have any reliable friends?
The Maid is a novel that is lobbed into two halves. The first part is suspenseful as you watch Molly do socially awkward things that will have you yelling at your Kindle (or your physical copy of the book, if you have one) in warning. Part of the suspense hinges on the fact that Molly is generally oblivious to what’s going on around her. The second half of the book is suspenseful in another way as Molly goes about solving whatever predicaments she has found herself in. The ending, if I’m not spoiling anything, is hopeful and upbeat. But as much as the publisher is billing this as a novel for fans of the board game Clue, there really isn’t too much of a whodunnit to this book. There is the revelation of the real person who might have been behind the murders at the very end, which winds up being a bit of a cheat — and I shall say no more. However, readers may guess who the person who is going to be framed for the murders aside from potentially Molly about halfway through the book. So, if you’re looking for a book to lay out some clues for you to solve the murder of the property mogul named Mr. Black (shades of Conrad?), you’ll be terribly disappointed.
Still, The Maid is enjoyable because a lot of the book centers on the peculiarities of its main character, Molly, from whose point of view that the story is told. Molly is learning to come into her own as her grandmother, who was taking care of her for most of her life, had turned out to have died some nine months before the start of the novel’s events. Gran, as she’s called, really did a lot of work for Molly to help her parse various social interactions, so Molly is more than a little adrift on her own when we meet her with no one to guide her through life’s complexities. Thus, there is some real pleasure to be had as you watch Molly try to figure out what’s going on around her, as much as this may be stress inducing at times, and what various gestures, head nods, and smiles might mean or reveal about a person. The fact that Molly is so likeable despite her obliviousness makes this a propulsive page-turner.
As noted, though, there are issues with this text. For one thing, it gets way too preachy with its “everyone is the same” message. For another, the book’s multiple endings are arguably not necessary. For yet another, the tone between the two halves of the book is vastly different. And for yet even another, the book is set in the modern-day (sans pandemic) but has all the feel of a novel that should be set in 1920s England — an effect that feels a little jarring at first. And yet this is a tale that is captivating and invigorating, the sort of thing that has you forgiving its flaws and genuinely appreciating as a work of entertainment. Be aware that The Maid hardly qualifies as high literature but, as a pot-boiler, it largely succeeds in what it has been set out to do: divert your attention away from the travails of day-to-day life and have you step inside another pair of shoes.
All in all, The Maid comes highly recommended: it may indeed have been written by a book world insider with a cushy job at a large publisher, but it looks like all the time spent helping other writers has meant that the author has written a pleasurable novel. From the acknowledgments, it looks like the film rights have been sewn up — so whether you buy the book or see the eventual movie, one thing’s for certain. By the time you’ve finished with this, you’re going to have a big goofy grin on your face. The Maid is a novel about resilience and remaining strong when the world is handing you lemons. In other words, it’s exactly the kind of book that we all need to read right now, regardless of the motivations behind its publication and the storied position of its creator.
Nita Prose’s The Maid will be published by Penguin Random House Canada / Viking on January 4, 2022.
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Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
