MISSOULA — Montana first heard the name Stephanie Land when the New York Times best-selling author moved to Missoula.
Now, the next chapter of her success comes on Friday, October 1, 2021, when the TV adaptation of her book - titled Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother's Will to Survive - airs on Netflix.
In her book, Land takes readers along as she walks away from an abusive relationship, scrubs grimy toilets for minimum wage, and watches her toddler learn to walk inside the walls of a homeless shelter.
“My favorite thing, currently, is being able to tip like 40 or 50%, and I like to leave a tip big enough that their co-workers are going to hear about it. That's my goal,” Land said.
But getting to this point took everything Land had, which she chronicles in the book. Her story is not romanticized, and that’s the point.
She explained, “I call it a gut punch, you know, like Upton Sinclair, where he wrote about the meatpacking industry but he got everybody in the stomach, and I wanted to do that with the social justice part of it, and talking about how broken the system is and how hard it is to just make ends meet when you're trying to survive and work on minimum wage.”
Land says she’ll never get used to the spotlight this novel has thrust upon her, but she feels confident in the people telling her story.
"This show is so authentic. It is real, it shows what it's like to only have two bucks in your pocket and to live with that amount of insecurity. I wrote my book so people would feel less alone,” Land concluded.
The Netflix series is titled "Maid," and features actors Margaret Qualley, Andie MacDowell, Nick Robinson, and Andie McDowell.
Here is the Netflix trailer for the show:
