The Help: A Book Review

Kathryn Stockett's first book, The Help, has been a New York Times bestseller for 50 weeks for good reason: it's the story of three women in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who are redefining themselves in response to the social and political events of that time. Two of the women are black maids and one is a white college graduate.

I quickly identified with Skeeter, the young white woman, and her discomfort with 60's Deep South customs. Skeeter feels helpless to do anythng, emotionally crippled by her mother's emphasis on marraige and Southern society. Skeeter earned a degree from Old Miss, but what use is it to a plain unmarried woman in Mississippi? She wants to be a journalist and gets a part-time job at the local paper writing a household hints column.

Skeeter knows nothing about keeping a house, having been raised by the family's black maid Constantine, who mysteriously disappeared while Skeeter was at college. She misses Constantine profoundly. Constantine was her mother in absentia, her encourager, her refuge. No one will tell her where Constantine went, or why. Skeeter's mother, a widow with whom she lives, keeps her mouth shut and refuses to discuss Constantine. Neither will any of her friends. This loss, and her new job, drives Skeeter to reach out to the community of black maids.

Needing help with the most basic questions that have been mailed to the newspaper, Skeeter turns to Abileen, her best friend's maid. Abileen is reluctant to get involved with this young white woman who shows up asking questions, first about how to get stains out of a shirt and next about what it's really like to work for white folks.

Skeeter wants to write a book. Eventually she convinces Abileen to talk to her, privately and secretly, at night, about life in the kitchen, serving the meals, raising the children. Skeeter writes to a publisher who expresses a slight interest, but demands more stories from more maids before considering the book.

Abileen recruits Minnie, her best friend and an outspoken person who continually gets fired for saying the wrong thing. Minnie, who has been treated terribly by Hilly, one of Skeeter's closest friends, is distrustful but decides to do it. The stories begin to flow, of the disrespect, abuse, and lies that the white women who hire these maids have done.

More black maids talk to Skeeter, meeting secretly at night at Abileen's house with Skeeter. The book becomes a community secret, kept as closely as the stories of what happens in the white houses. Abileen is not just the primary voice for the black maids. She is also the witness who sees and hears it all - like we the readers have become. Skeeter cannot go back to who she was before she started writing. She has heard, and is beginning to notice, the truth.

Skeeter's friends, Elizabeth, Celia, and Hilly, are the sometimes conscious villians of the story. Hilly and her hatred of Minnie are central to the plot. The stories told by the maids are stories from Skeeter's friends' homes. She tries to keep identities secret as whe writes, and Abileen helps her. Skeeter meets a man through one of her friends who seems to find her attractive. Skeeter's mother is overjoyed at the prospect of a potential marraige. The man, Stuart, is not strongly developed. His character is another reflection of society - this time from outside the house.

We readers know the book will be published. The stories told by the black maids are too big to stay unheard. We find out what happened to Constantine. We dread what will happen when women in Jackson, Mississippi, read the book. What we fear comes to pass. Skeeter is shunned. Maids are fired. But Minnie's action - the reason Hilly hates her - is the salvation. Read the book! It is an amazing story of a shameful time, and there is redemption in the truth.

A favorite song by some of my favorite singers: I Believe in a Hill Called Mt. Calvary

This is a song called I Believe in a Hill Called Mt. Calvary by the Gaither Vocal Band. I especially love the tenors, especially David Phelps, the one with curly hair. Enjoy!