First-Time Novelist Succeeds with The Help

Author:  Kathryn Stockett
Title:  The Help
Publisher:  Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam

In the early sixties in Jackson, Mississippi, everyone knew their place. White ladies attended Junior League meetings, bridge parties, and fundraisers for starving orphans in Africa. Black women cleaned the white ladies' houses, took care that the white children never interrupted a bridge party, and tried to put food on their own families' tables. On the surface, it was all very smooth.

Beneath the surface, it was a mess.

The Help takes us straight into the big middle of that mess through the eyes of three Jackson women. Skeeter (only her mother calls her Eugenia) is a young white woman who recently graduated from Ol' Miss without obtaining her "MRS" degree. This makes her a failure in her mother's eyes and an oddity in her circle of friends. Skeeter wants to be a writer. A real writer, not just the editor of the Junior League newsletter. But what is she supposed to write about in Jackson, Mississippi?

Aibileen is an older black woman who has raised generations of white children. Her current charge is little Mae Mobley, whose own mother cannot be bothered with her. Aibileen pours her heart into the neglected little girl, telling her over and over, "You is kind. You is smart. You is important." Aibileen is warm-hearted and wise, the sort of woman Paul must have had in mind when he wrote to Titus about older women mentoring young ones.

Then there's Minny. When her mother sat down young Minny and told her the "rules for working in a White Lady's house" Rule Number Seven was "No sass-mouthing." Unfortunately, years later, Minny still hasn't mastered that one. A fabulous cook, Minny usually manages to get a job-which she usually manages to lose shortly thereafter. The chapters where we're inside her head are some of the highlights of the book.

The Civil Rights movement is just gearing up when Skeeter decides to write a book about what it's like to be a black woman working in a white woman's house. Since she doesn't have a clue about that, Skeeter recruits Aibileen to help her collect stories. It's not easy. The maids are afraid-in some cases, rightfully so-they'll lose their jobs and possibly their lives if they tell what really goes on behind closed doors. But slowly, secretly, the truth comes out.

Both heartbreaking and uplifting, The Help is a window into the not-so-distant past. Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny's world seems centuries away, yet it was the norm less than a lifetime ago. I found The Help funny, touching, appalling, and so engrossing that I was startled to look up from my reading and discover it was three a.m. First-time novelist Kathryn Stockett's words ring true on every page. Here's hoping there are many more pages to come from this talented author.


**This review first published on December 8, 2009.