Page Thirty-One

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

It is the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi. The policy of "separate but equal" is in full, hypocritical swing. Jim Crow laws may have passed, but within the city is much racial tension, and dealing with "uppity" blacks who have done something to cross a white takes many horrific forms. Miss Skeeter, the white daughter of a plantation owner, is a frustrated young woman. She is quickly beginning to see she doesn't quite fit in with her racist, bridge-playing, married-with-children friends. While her friends are wrapped up in petty concerns and setting their black maids straight, she is trying to find herself as a writer and find a way out of her oppressive hometown. On a whim, she sends an idea to an editor in New York for an idea for a book: an expose on the lives of black maids in one of the most racially-heated cities in the South. So begins her clandestine meetings with Aibileen and Minny, opening her eyes to the truth of black and white relations. One by one other maids begin to step forward to share their stories, and the women must deal with the repurcussions of what may happen to them if the people of Jackson find out they are the main characters in Miss Skeeter's book.

The novel is made of up three different perspectives: Miss Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny. Each character has her own distinct voice. Miss Skeeter is obviously a vague representation of the author herself; Aibileen is a caring, older woman mourning the loss of her own son, and moves from white home to white home once the white children she's reared stop being colourblind; Minny is an outspoken, larger woman with an equally large family and a drunken husband, whose devilish antics have her holding much of the suspense of the book.

I really enjoyed this book. Finally a book I read this summer that I actually didn't want to put down. Granted, it hinted at To Kill a Mockingbird in ways that were a bit obvious, but I appreciated the new perspective it gave, especially since it came from the author's own relationship and lingering questions with her black maid she had growing up in Jackson. I found myself truly detesting certain characters, and feeling bitterness at knowing there are people as ignorant - and more so - as those in the book, and the lengths people go to which stem from their own stupidity. But the book is also funny, and touching, and just makes for a good story.