The Help

I finally decided to break down and read this book after the movie (which I've been holding off on, until finishing the book) started receiving so much acclaim. I'd heard that the story was good, I wasn't quite prepared for just how good -- it's exceptional. I can't remember the last time I read a novel where I actually felt every emotion experienced, on every single page, by the "good" characters. I literally laughed and cried throughout the book, and stayed up late two nights in a row to rush though the final 200 pages.

My love for history started in 8th grade social studies, where my teacher required that we read the textbooks on our own time, sit through her lectures in class, and then read a historical novel set in each historical show more era we studied. The Help is that historical novel, for the Civil Rights Movement. Stocket did an amazing job capturing the dialect (which she should have, since she grew up there); depicting the horrible bigotry, fear and violence of the that era in that region; and capturing the complex relationships (some good, a lot of bad) between white and black society in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi.

I was also very drawn to the role that churches and religion played in the book. How so many of the southern white supremacist characters used their so-called "Christian" faith and duty to justify segregation and bigotry. And how critical a role the local black church played in providing comfort and support to a community that felt beaten down, hopeless and lived in fear for their lives.

It hit me hard to read how much it hurt Aibileen every time one of the loving nanny-raised white kids grew up and turned into bigots just like their parents. And to see how hard she tried to make sure that Mae Mobley wouldn't grow up that same way.

But, despite the underlying dark tones of racist bigotry and violence, the book is filled with humor. Minny has to indeed be one of the funniest characters I've ever encountered in a novel.

When done with the book, I instantly longed for a sequel that continues the life stories of Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter. And I felt grateful, once again, that I was raised by color-blind parents in a color-blind extended family -- and not in Mississippi. show less

This is a very powerful and cleverly written book. Skeeter, a young graduate returning to her home town in Mississippi in the early 1960s, discovers that her beloved black maid/nanny Constantine has vanished - and nobody will tell her why, or where she has gone.

Skeeter is part of the bridge-playing socialite community, but she begins to see flaws in her friends' attitudes; she wants to be a journalist, and takes on a weekly advice column, and asks questions of one of her friends' maids, Aibeleen. Aibeleen loves the white children she has raised, and puts up with a great deal of racism from her employers; but something changed inside her when her grown-up son was tragically killed, and she agrees to collaborate with Skeeter on a book show more which - anonymously - reveals what really goes on in different households, from the perspectives of the maids.

Coming from a multi-cultural town in the UK, I was quite shocked to learn of the intense racism that was evidently still strong in the Southern states of the US, as recently as the 1960s. This isn't just about the evils of organised racism, but the ingrained attitudes of many young women who had themselves been raised by black nannies, and probably loved them very much - but grew up to be convinced that they should be segregated, not eating at the same tables, not going to the same toilets.

No doubt there are anachronisms and inaccuracies as other reviewers have pointed out; nevertheless, the author does extremely well in the three quite distinct voices (Skeeter, Aibileen, and a much more outspoken maid called Minny) and brings together a very thought-provoking book. It still seems astonishing to me that there was legalised racial segregation as recently as fifty years ago, in parts of America... I grew up knowing about apartheid in South Africa, but it seems to have been a well-kept secret that something very similar was going on the Southern US only a decade or two earlier.

Not a difficult read, though it's quite a long book (over 500 pages). Definitely recommended. show less

I enjoyed this book immensely, in part because of my own childhood upbringing in the 1960s and 1970s in southern Illinois, with a mother and other family from the deep South. The book's amazing immersion into the culture of that region and time period, and even the dialects, took me back home. I didn't grow up in a family with a black maid, so I can't identify with that. But this story takes you into a unique perspective of that era and I personally wrestled with ever putting down the book down (which I read on my handy little Nook, by the way). I want to read it again because I know I'll get even more out of the second reading. The characters are rich and varied in their personalities and desires and, despite the heavy context of the show more story, there are some very entertaining moments. The plot keeps you hooked to find out what will happen as a group of maids secretly tell what their lives are like working for white families in a period when speaking out could be quite devastating. Stockett skillfully captures some of the complexities of black-white relationships back then. I felt this complexity in a variety of ways while I grew up but have never been able to articulate it. I thank this author for stepping out there with this work. show less

Before I dive into all the problematic aspects of this novel, I just want to point out I've come to love Aibileen and Minny and if it weren't for them and their hilarious comments, I'd have never finished this book. The only reason I gave this two stars instead of one is because of them.

I'm sure all of these points have been mentioned before, but here's what I find problematic and quite frankly, disturbing, about this novel:
1. A white woman writing from the perspective of a black woman. That in itself disturbs me, but considering the setting, it's even more problematic. As Stockett acknowledges herself, a white woman will never know what it's like to be a black woman. It makes it even worse that she decided to go through with this show more idea despite knowing it's not her place to write from a black person's perspective.
2. A white woman writing in AAVE/early Southern U.S. dialect. Kind of goes with the first one, but it felt like AAVE wasn't respected as a dialect by Stockett by writing in a dialect she doesn't personally speak. I don't speak AAVE myself, as I'm not American nor Black, and I have no idea if she used it correctly. Again, I don't think it was her place to write in a dialect that black people get a lot of backlash for from white people- especially in professional settings. Also, was using the n-word that often really necessary?
3. This may be the one that bothers me the most: Miss Skeeter being the white saviour. Sure, her naivety gets pointed out, but she ends up being applauded by the black community for essentially profiting off the stories they provided her, while the maids continue to live in fear. True, the book probably wouldn't have been published if it weren't for Miss Skeeter, but it still bothered me.

I don't think the writing was all that bad, nor do I think everything about this book was terrible, but the positive aspects don't make up for the inherent problems I personally have with The Help . show less

This is a book that I think Stockett needed to write, had to write. But perhaps, like love/hate letters to jilted ex/unrequited love/old boss, it needed to be written as a kind of emotional purge and put away. There seems to be to me here a huge element of white wish fulfillment. To live in a time when so many were wrong but you know what’s right and can fight the good fight. Would I have such a negative reaction if Stockett had actually lived through the Civil Rights era? Possibly not. But I see much of my own struggles in her approach here. Struggles with the legacy of being a white southerner; a legacy which would be much different if I had been alive during the 60s when I could have made an impact, and done meaningful work, and show more music was better, etc, etc. Living in the now everything is messy and complex and uncertain and often feels helpless and how do you know if you’re woke or not. So the whole thing ends up feeling a little Gone with the Wind style love letter to a past gone by (which was pretty shitty to begin with) and a people you never really knew.

I must note that I was not bothered by a white person writing from a black person’s perspective. However, I was particularly bothered by a quick point in which Skeeter’s parents are watching the LSU/Ole Miss game the weekend after James Meredith enrolls at Ole Miss and the ensuing riots. Meredith enrolled on October 1st, 1962 and the LSU game was November 3rd (and it was an away game) - I looked this up on Wikipedia and there’s an excellent ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about this exact topic so not obscure knowledge. If you’re going to go out on a controversial limb with this literary technique, you (or your publisher) should better double check you’ve got your I’s dotted and T’s crossed. And this one moment left me with the feeling that the legacy and history of these maids were not treated with the kind of care needed to really pull this off.

With all of that being said, I didn’t hate the book in of itself. I liked many of the characters. It was exciting. I wanted to get back to it to find out what would happen. So as a book it’s entertaining, but probably unnecessary without a lot more thoughtfulness. show less

Summary: All of Skeeter Phelan's friends are busily getting married and having babies, while Skeeter's got bigger plans: she wants to be a writer. But in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, that's easier said than done. Skeeter gets a job writing the cleaning advice column for the local paper, but she knows nothing about cleaning, so she turns to her friend's housekeeper, Abilene. The more they talk, the more Skeeter becomes aware of the unfair practices and daily indignities of being a black housekeeper for a white woman in the Civil-Rights-era South. When an editor tells Skeeter to write about the things that bother her, but that no one else notices, she gets a dangerous idea: what about a book that describes the point of view of the help? show more She talks Abilene into it, but neither of them have any idea what they're getting themselves into, and what the repercussions of their collaboration could wind up being.

Review: I was bound and determined not to be charmed by this book. I'd seen everybody love it, but I said to myself, "Self, this book is going to be all charming and emotionally manipulative and it's going to try really hard to make you love it despite yourself, so don't let it, okay?" And so that's the mindset that I went into this book with, and guess what? I failed. This book charmed me right out of my stubbornness.

(Actually, in the spirit of honesty, I had this conversation with myself about the movie first. And then I was all "Self, the movie charmed you despite your best intentions, and left you all sniffly in the theater, and you know the book is going to be the same, so really, let's resist having our heartstrings tugged this time, okay?" And then I failed at that too.)

So, yeah. This book was thoroughly charming, and my heartstrings did wind up getting tugged, but I came out of it feeling like it had earned its emotional moments (one of which happened while I was reading in public. Allergies, I swear!) Stockett is very good at creating a sense of place and of moment with her writing, and her prose flows easily and naturally. I was a little bit worried, originally, since Abilene's sections are written in dialect, which can so easily go wrong, but Stockett uses it effectively, letting it add to Abilene's voice without overwhelming it.

There were times throughout the book that made me feel like the whole thing was an exercise in racial apologetics: "See, not all white people are horrible racists, even in the South!" And, to her credit, in a note at the end Stockett addresses the issue of a white woman presuming to speak for generations of black women. Racial issues form the core of this book, and while they're not something on which I feel particularly qualified to speak, I did appreciate Stockett bringing to light a side of our history and culture that I had never before considered. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Neither near-historical fiction nor Southern fiction are usually my thing, but I wound up really enjoying this book, so if it even vaguely appeals, it's worth reading. show less

Okay I have to admit that the hype led me to find out why this story was so popular. Every once in awhile a book becomes so popular that I am led to see what’s on the pulse of readers-so to speak. This was true for me regarding the ever popular The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. When I read that book, I felt that “Okay, I get it, but the writing still didn’t warrant my need to read further.’ Conversely, I was surprised how much I liked Stockett’s novel. The perspective of three narrators was a nice device which enabled the reader to get to see the incredible dichotomy of entrusting “The Help” to completely raise children, but not share a bathroom. The historical elements of Jackson, Mississippi , 1963, are nicely entwined show more into the narrative and provide an excellent historical context for better understanding how these events – ( the first black man accepted into Old Miss, the murder of Medgar Evans, the bus seat of Rosa Parks and Kennedy’s assassination) - affected the daily existence of the typical white Southern women more interested in her weekly card game and her standing in a society dominated by a classic “bigoted bitch” character – Hilly Holbrook. Hilly is mostly afraid – afraid of her mother’s sassy nanny, Minny, afraid that the debutant South is losing its essential boundaries, and afraid that she may lose her status of queen bee if she even tries to understand her long-time best friend Skeeter’s motivation for trying to write about the life of women who genuinely love their babies. It is Hilly’s fear that becomes a pivotal and wonderful development in the risk of publishing these stories for the world to consider. I was both involved and interested in the characters that Stockett developed and will be interested in seeing them eventually on the movie screen. So in this case – at least for me – the hype was a good thing. Thank you hype. show less