July 2011
Stockett, Kathryn, The Help (June 2011)
Although I am usually a little skeptical of so-called best-sellers, this novel is excellent. Set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1960s, the novel portrays the relationships between white female employers and their black maids. We are introduced to a culture that, in the sixties, still resonates with discrimination and retaliation for blacks no matter how small the implication of wrongdoing. Skeeter, a white woman recently graduated from college with a passion for writing, decides to elicit the help of one of the black maids, Abilene, in describing this tenuous relationship between employers and maids. Skeeter has an interest from a New York publisher but must find at least twelve black maids to cooperate and give her their stories. Although she promises anonymity to each of the maids, there is a very real threat if it is discovered that any of the maids is one of the characters in the book. The threat could be loss of a job or the distinct possibility of violence to any of the black families, of course from sources unknown. As a sub-text is the relationship between Skeeter and her old-school mother whose main purpose is to see Skeeter married to someone of “class,” and while she tries to make over her daughter, Skeeter forges her own course in life and eventually takes a job in New York after her book is published. Stockett was raised in Mississippi, so she speaks from personal knowledge. However, she herself admits that it can never be assumed that a white writer can actually speak for the black point of view. I would imagine that unless you had some experience in the South, this story would seem incomprehensible. As it is, it gives us a glimpse into a part of the history of the United State of which we should all be ashamed.
