I grew up in a small town. One where race relations weren't always optimal. There was "the wrong side of the tracks" and little white girls weren't allowed to go there. Our little farming town was not the most integrated and forward thinking place. The N word could still be heard on a regular basis. The houses on the wrong side of town could be run down and terrible, while the other side of town enjoyed brick and central heat and air. I actually lived outside of town in a little farming operation that used to be a plantation and was turned into a corporation. There were "big houses" right across from the store/post office/business office and the shop/gas station. The workers, which were becoming predominately Mexican at this point, were in shacks with leaning porches, air conditioners sticking out of windows, and couches on the meager front porches. When Kathy Stockett starts describing the maids' part of town - I have specific images to refer to in my head. Very specific.
When MotherTalk showcased The Help as their newest book tour, I practically begged for the chance to read it. I love books set in the South. I love an author's take on the accents and how they describe all the things that make it the South.
This isn't a fluff book. Kathy Stockett has taken a very volatile time in history and put faces on it. No longer can I think of Martin Luther King's march on Washington without think of what Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny were doing - what they were plotting - while the "I Have a Dream" speech was being made. She deals with the broader issues of the time by using a the personal story of these maids and their lives to bring it home.
This book is set in Jackson, Mississippi, an area of the Mississippi Delta I am intimately familiar with. The year is 1962 and race relations in America have started to come to a head: lynchings, beatings, murders, hangings, fire hoses, dogs, the Birmingham Church Bombings, integration - all of those things are going on. And Jackson is ignoring it. They don't talk about it, they don't watch it on TV. It's not happening in Jackson, so it's not happening.
If you are anybody to anybody there are a few rules to follow in Jackson 1. You are a member of the League 2. You don't work 3. You have a black maid
The story is told through three characters: Miss Skeeter, Abilieen and Minny. Aibileen and Minny are both maids and Miss Skeeter is a white woman who has the audacity to challenge the status quo in town. She wants to be a writer more than anything and her mother just wants her to be married.
Skeeter decides to write a book about Jackson's maids and their employers in order to get the attention of a New York publishing house she is trying to impress. The task becomes dangerous almost instantly. Trying to get a maid to spill secrets on the ladies who pay them is no easy feat. Aibileen is the first to talk, and then Minny. After a maid is caught stealing and punished more harshly because her boss knows the judge, the maids start lining up to tell their stories.
These women have to deal with all kinds of injustices. There are separate bathrooms in the garage (because one League member thinks "coloreds have different diseases" than white people) They are treated as if they are not there, but are required to take care of the children, do all the cooking and cleaning, and then disappear before husbands come home. Then they have to walk to the bus stop in all weather to get a ride home.
Miss Skeeter is also missing the lady who practically raised her, Constantine, and no one will tell Skeeter where she is or what happened. So it's got to be something bad, only no one will say. The book explores these relationships where the children are raised by a maid, but then told at school and home that black people are bad. How can the children reconcile the love and care they have received with what they are being taught?
The stories that the maids tell become bigger than just a book, it becomes a mission to Skeeter to tell the story and for the maids to get it out. To tell somebody what is happening to them. Some are good, some are bad, and Minny's is doozy. They are going to be anonymous in the book, but all the maids know that if their employers read the book, they will be found out. And so they come up with a plan. A brilliant plan for Minny's story to be the last one in the book and seal up their anonymity.
I laughed and I was horrified. I felt overwhelming love for these women who gave so much and got so little respect in return.
This is no exaggeration for sake of story telling. The black maid of the south in the 60's experienced these all too real situations. I'm just some privileged, 30-something white girl sitting in my nice house. I would love to hear from someone who lived in this time, and worked like this and how they feel about the portrayal of the working environment.
Want to Know What I Think?
I loved this book I don't even have the words to say how much I loved these words. I've read thousands of books in my life, and this one touched my heart and It is going down as a favorite, which is a hard position to win. It made me sad, it made me hopeful, it made me think. I stayed up half the night to finish it. I can't say enough about how this book grabbed me and pulled me in. Even if you aren't from the South, you will appreciate a glimpse into a world you may never have know existed. Kathy Stockett gets it. And you need to take what she's giving us as a glimpse into another time.
It's available from Amazon
I want you to have the chance to read it too.
Leave me a comment and I'll select one reader to get a copy of this book.You can earn additional entries by tweeting about the contest, subscribing to my feed, or adding my button to your sidebar or a post.Leave a separate comment for each entry you qualify for. The contest will end on February 22, 2009 at 6 pm CST.
