MADreads

Black women in white uniforms

August 17th, 2009 Mary K. - Central

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is a very polished and readable first novel, set in Jackson, Mississipi in the early 1960’s.  Eugenia ” Skeeter” has returned to her  childhood home after graduating from Ole Miss without an engagement ring.  She has no plans for her life, except for a vague notion that she might like to write.

Skeeter’s childhood friends are all married and settled, with social lives which feature bridge games and meetings of the Junior League.  In their households, black women wear white uniforms and work as maids in white households. They do everything for the families, including raising their children, but are never considered to be part of the family.  And Skeeter ends up splitting with her best friend Hillie after Hillie begins a campaign to have bathrooms designated exclusively for the black maids so that the maids do not contaminate the facilities used by the white family.

Unsuccessful in her search for a magazine job in New York, Skeeter takes the advise of an agent who advises her to move out of her parents’ house and get a job as a writer.  Unfortunately the only journalism job available at the Jackson newspaper is a column on household hints.  Skeeter knows nothing about housework, so she turns to her friend Elizabeth’s black maid Aibileen for answers.  This connection, and her falling out with Hillie, prompt Skeeter to write a book about the lives of the black maids.  With the help of a determined Aibilleen, she gets the life stories of many maids and is able to publish the book anonymously.

The story is told in alternating chapters by Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny, another maid which made listening to the audiobook a pleasure, with each character assigned a different narrative voice.  I highly recommend this book for its portrayal of the time period, the racial strife, and the civil rights movement, as well as insider view of middle class white households in that era.  The individual characters all show their strengths and ability to endure and Stockett makes them come alive for the reader.

Entry Filed under: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction