The Help ….by Kathryn Stockett
The number 1 best seller on Amazon and 366 days in the top 100. I think that means it’s good. This optimistic, uplifting debut novel is set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss.,where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who’s raised 17 children, and Aibileen’s best friend Minny, who’s found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers.
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women - mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends - view one another. A deeply moving book filled with poignancy, humour, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.
Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it.
$9 Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam; 1 edition (February 10, 2009) from Borders and amazon.com
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