mono_vox (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mono_vox) wrote,@ 2007-12-18 12:38:00 |
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50 books in 1 year - # 48
My Cleaner
Maggie Gee
The moral dilemma of whether employing someone to clean your home is right (I think not) made me pick this up and the plot goes like this:
My Cleaner
Maggie Gee
The moral dilemma of whether employing someone to clean your home is right (I think not) made me pick this up and the plot goes like this:
“Vanessa Henman, a neurotic, middle-aged, middle-class writer, her despised painter and decorator ex-husband, Trevor, and their son, Justin, who is 22 and too depressed to get out of bed.
The only person Justin wants to see is Mary Tendo, the Ugandan cleaner who took care of him through most of his childhood when his mother was too busy in her study to spend any time with him. When Mary responds to Vanessa's cry for help, the balance of power in the house shifts dramatically and everyone's life begins to change irrevocably.”
This book is all about light and shade, in a lot of senses. Obviously with the women's skins, backgrounds and outlooks - Vanessa is white, middles class, terribly concerned with appearing right on, selfish, prickly and aggressively ambitious. Mary is black, working class, upbeat, down to earth, friendly and quietly ambitious - but also with their story, which flicks around, from the past to the present, taking in their flaws and good bits.
Both Africa and Britain are described in a way that is neither gritty nor romantic. Britain is grey and overly complicated, Africa is shiny and simple, which mirrors Mary and Vanessa’s characters - Vanessa is a cringeworthy, hand wringing liberal who is horrifically selfish and uptight, and Mary as an open woman who has seen a lot but has inner strength.
Although this was an enjoyable look at class and morals, I thought the descriptions of both women's childhoods went on a bit too long, and was disturbed by Mary's behaviour with Justin (suckling a grown man? Eww!), but other than that, it wasn’t half bad.
