My Cleaner

My Cleaner studies the relationship between two women with much more in common than either of them suspects. Vanessa is a sixtyish English woman, solidly middle class, a writer with two novels and several successful Pilates books to her credit, who now teaches creative writing, the divorced mother of a son. Mary is a younger Ugandan woman, college educated, linen supervisor in a hotel in Kampala, also the divorced mother of a son, who once worked for several years as Vanessa's cleaner. When Vanessa's son Justin has a nervous breakdown, she appeals to Mary to return to England to help him. Mary realizes that she can save most of the money she makes in England and use it for a better life with her boyfriend and for the girls in her show more village.
The two women do not like each other. Vanessa is jealous of Mary's relationship with Justin, but Mary mothered Justin when he was a baby and Vanessa was too busy. In fact, Vanessa is jealous of Mary's relationships with everybody and spends a good bit of her time shoring up her own shaky ego. Mary, on the other hand, lost her son to her husband when they divorced, and although she was devoted to him, she was not able to spend a lot of time with him when he was a baby because she was taking care of Justin. Now Jamil (or Jamey or Jamie - Does Mary not know how he spells his name?) has disappeared, and Mary is as fearful for him as Vanessa is for Justin. Mary sees Vanessa as out of touch with reality, a small woman swamped by her possessions, spoiled, and too self-indulgent to be of any use in the world.
What ensues is a charming, funny, touching journey to self-understanding and accommodation through misunderstandings and deception. Maggie Gee's writing is pitch-perfect, understated, and insightful. As Mary and Vanessa haggle over money, she writes, "They are a breath apart, with the world between them." I thought before I wrote this that I liked the book very much. Now I believe I love it. show less

"She and Vanessa are not so different. In some ways they are almost the same"
By sally tarbox on 2 January 2018
Format: Kindle Edition
Maybe 2.5* for a readable, if really rather silly, bit of chick-lit.
Vanessa is a lecturer in Creative Writing and rather a sloane ranger type, with her materialistic, fashionable London life. But her 22 year old son Justin is lying in bed with some sort of breakdown, and Vanessa invites her old cleaner, who helped bring him up, back to the home from Uganda, to help.
And so the stage is set for an implausible tale. Inevitable tensions between Vanessa - unpleasant, stingy, jealous - and Mary - forced to occupy a subordinate role, but very much her own person.
The glimpses of Mary's life in Uganda were quite show more interesting, but I just didn't buy the interplay of the two women. show less

An unexpected and a delightful read for me; This was my first experience reading this author and I want to read more .... This is clever ... It explores many areas including, cultural differences, racism, family-life, tolerance .... It is touching ... yet, lively and you just want to keep on reading it. I could not put it down!!

An enjoyable if light comedy of manners exploring the similarities and contrasts between white professional suburban mother and black, educated African mother when brought together in a domestic setting. October 2020.