Her new memoir, “Class,” rewinds to 2013, tracking what happened to Land and her daughter just after the events recounted in “Maid,” when they moved to Montana so Land could pursue a Bachelor of Arts in English. Far from offering an escape from poverty, higher education introduced a crushing new math of university requirements and another $50,000 of student loan debt — all while she contended with the bureaucracy of child support battles and SNAP recertification.
During that time, Land writes, she was often hungry. As the book unfolds, it becomes clear that we’re being presented with the fundamental facts of not just her physical needs but also her deepest desires: to become a writer, despite the many people who told her it was an impossible luxury, and to have another child on her own in her mid-30s.
Land and I spoke over video earlier this fall. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How did the idea for “Class” come about?
A: The main story of “Class” — moving to Montana, escaping a toxic environment, and going to college and graduating — was the one that I’d pitched for “Maid.” That has always been, to me, the most interesting thing about my story. But it became apparent to me that I was going to write about cleaning houses, because other people found that really interesting. I think it’s kind of a weird subject matter, but whatever.
I signed the contract [for “Class”] in January 2020. It was actually sold as a very different book. It was going to be narrative nonfiction, deeply reported. I’m not a journalist — I don’t even know the code of ethics for all of that — so it was this really intimidating thing. So right after the Netflix series came out, I was prepared to tell my editor: “Look, I can’t — I can’t write this book. It’s not going to happen.” By that time, I’d been blocked for a couple of years and I didn’t really see that improving.
My editor told me: “The Netflix series is so incredible. Everybody’s just loving it. I know you’ve been struggling with this book. And you can write whatever you want.” Nobody had ever said that to me before. I kind of sat with that for a while, because it’s just a warm, fuzzy, golden-opportunity feeling.
I chose my senior year of college [as material], because it was probably the hardest year of my life.
Q: When you say you were blocked, what was that like for you?
A: I signed the contract, and then the world shut down. I’d also had a pretty horrific miscarriage. My husband and I kept trying, and I ended up having four in one year. So there was that aspect of it, and then losing income because public speaking didn’t really go well — we hadn’t started doing everything on Zoom yet — and having kids at home.
But I was also really fighting with myself. I wrote “Maid” in low-income housing as a single mom. I thought about my senior year of college; I wrote so much, and I was pregnant, and I was hungry. So there was a lot of negative self-talk: “You’re in this privileged place, you have the ability to do a lot of stuff that you couldn’t then, and you still can’t produce.” It was horrible.
I’ve always struggled with finding value in myself as a human being, because for so long I was told I only had value to society if I was physically working. I could only eat if I was physically working. And so if I could not produce, if I could not work, then I felt like I had no value at all. It took a lot of therapy. And it took a very solid deadline that was very close to the day that I was in. [Laughs.]
Q: A lot of the book is about your deep desire to be a writer, even though it’s work that’s not perceived as economically valuable and is perceived as a luxury. Now that you are a working writer, what aspects of your life would surprise your younger self?
A: The most surprising thing is that my job became talking to people for a living. I did not think that was a natural progression of being a writer. My vision was definitely a cabin and wool socks and a dog and a fire. And I was just going to write my books, and somehow people would be able to read it. If you asked me when I was younger, “What job would you definitely not do?,” it would be public speaking. So I don’t really see myself as a working writer. I’m writing essays [to promote] the publication of this book, and I haven’t written an essay in years.
Q: I saw that you recently gave the convocation speech for entering students at Montana State University. With “Class” coming out, what was it like to talk to people just starting school, on the verge of that experience?
A: That’s my favorite gig: to talk to students. But the convocation — I didn’t know what it was. I had to Google it, because I had never been to one. It was massive. I walked in with the president and the provost. I still don’t know what a provost is.
The advice that I gave was — well, I told them the importance of office hours. If there’s any agenda for the book, it’s to let everyone know what office hours are and to take advantage of them. And then I reminded them that they are already an expert in their experience and have a lot to offer the university because of that. And I’m just hoping that they get to write their own story while they’re in college. If you think about it, I’m on this stage because of an essay I was assigned in college. And one day, maybe you also can stand on a stage and be terrified. You too can sweat through your clothes.
Q: What are you excited to work on next? You mentioned the essays you’re planning to write, for example. I thought I heard sort of a nervous laugh there.
A: I always know that question is coming. And I try to be honest about how I’m feeling that day. I go back and forth between wanting to finish a trilogy, like Mary Karr or something. I might chase that fulfillment. I very much need to write these gory essays about miscarriage. I know that it’s in there, and it needs to come out at some point. But first, I just really need to have a lot of fun with writing again and fall in love with it again. It’s a big part of myself that I’ve kind of lost touch with.
Q: Are there things that you think readers will be surprised by in this new book?
A: I think so? I mean, I wrote “Maid” very apologetically. I was very Oliver Twist, very much trying to be the “please, sir,” acceptable, deserving poor. A palatable poor person. With this one, I guess I felt like I had the platform. I felt like I had a little bit more body armor from the success.
It’s interesting how people react and what they react to. There were things that I put in “Maid” that I knew people were going to get upset about.
A: The diamond ring — the $200 ring that I bought myself. People got so mad about that, and I knew they would. In this one, I’ve already seen some things, unfortunately. One lady was upset that I gave my daughter so much ice cream. [Laughs.] I wasn’t expecting that one. She also mentioned that I bought myself steaks. That was clearance! It was not good steak.
I very much wanted to play with the resistance of people thinking that poor people don’t deserve to have anything nice. A woman having sex is supposed to be a very nice thing, but for a single mom, we’re supposed to be angelic. Nobody really talks about it, but we are living, breathing beings who are very human and have the same desires as everybody else. It’s like a cardinal sin or something for a single mom to go out on a date. It’s also a cardinal sin for her to remain single, because she “needs a man.”
But writing about sex was so mortifying. Those were the sections I read out loud to my friends and was like, “Is this okay?”
Q: That’s pretty brave, to read it out loud, if you were already feeling self-conscious about it.
A: And then I had to read it out loud for the audiobook, obviously. I’m sure I was glowing red.
