Molly Gray struggles to decipher social cues. Her speech is formal and old-fashioned. She’s obsessed with cleaning—a real advantage in her job as a maid in a grand old hotel. Gran, who always helped her navigate the world, recently died, leaving 25-year-old Molly an orphan. Readers may be quick to diagnose Molly as being on the autism spectrum, but Prose wisely avoids such language, forcing us to make sense of Molly on her own terms. Then comes the day when the maid goes to clean the room of the wealthy and loathsome Charles Black, only to find him dead, likely the victim of murder. Molly’s world is turned upside down as she finds herself the lead suspect. Suddenly, she has to do the unthinkable: reach out to others for help in saving herself. The Maid is a lovely, uplifting exploration of friendship and the power of difference. As Gran would say, “We are the same in different ways.”
