susanneb01 's review for:

Carnegie's Maid by Marie Benedict

4.0

adventurous emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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“Carnegie’s Maid” is a well written historical novel that confronts the real Andrew Carnegie with a fictionalized Irish ladies’ maid, both immigrants from poor backgrounds, both educated and motivated to succeed in America. In the story, Carnegie is already well on his way to a powerful, wealthy and influential businessman while Clara, fresh off the boat, still struggles like so many other newly arrived people. The novel offers an intriguing explanation of Carnegie’s moral ambiguity: on the one hand being a ruthless industrialist when it comes to his employees,  and using some questionable business practices, yet on the other hand being the great philanthropist that built hundreds of free libraries among other donations. The novel is a great slice of life into the upper social classes from the servant’s perspective,  and was fun to read as it is mostly set in Pittsburgh, a familiar city.