Set in the early 1960’s when the Civil Rights Movement was tearing apart the South, The Help by Kathryn Stockett shows the struggle through the eyes of two black maids. Loving Abilene, who raises 17 white children over the years then watches them grow up to join another class and break her heart, or Mouthy Minnie who has been fired numerous times for talking back to her white employers.
These two women only have their voices heard because of Skeeter. She is a Junior Leaguer in Jackson, Mississippi, member of a wealthy family who, unlike all her friends, wants to use her degree to become a writer instead of settling down with marriage and kids. She comes up with the idea of writing a book undercover about the black maids’ lives in Jackson. In an era where a man is blinded for using a “whites only” bathroom, the maids overcome their mistrust of Skeeter and they risk everything to have their stories told.
Skeeter’s best friend is Hilly who is the Queen Bee of Jackson. She is a proponent of what she calls the “bathroom initiative” which is a mission to install black bathrooms in all white homes for the maids, to avoid their “disgusting diseases.” The book shows the journey of Skeeter’s awareness of how the maids feel about this and how attitudes are beginning to change in Jackson.
The Help blends the maids’ internal feelings and thoughts beautifully against what they say and how they act around their white employers. These opposing forces in the maids’ lives and the double life Skeeter has to lead to obtain the maids’ stories are woven throughout, along with the increasingly violent backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement which is spreading throughout
the South.
The beauty of the book is that it deals with the difficult topic of racial prejudice without being preachy and one-sided. While there are villains in the story, both black and white, both races also have redeeming qualities which come through in their relationships with one another. The Help explores how the maids and their white employers have lives that are intertwined yet
separate and has characters that are many-faceted and compelling.
The Help is a wonderful, uplifting story.