The Help Book

Kathryn Stockett has crafted a beautiful and fascinating first novel that I just couldn't put down and managed to read in one weekend. The story is told through the voices of three of the main characters.
Skeeter has a strong bond with Constantine, the maid who raised her prior to being educated at Ole Miss University, and she had naive ambitions to leave the South for a editors role at one of New York's publishing houses. Guided by advice to look for opportunities to write closer to home first, and by a curiosity to find out what has happened to Constantine, Skeeter becomes inspired by the lives of the maids who serve her and her affluent white friends. Recognising the power imbalances that occur within the relationships and the problems of segregation, she experiences for herself the effects of being ostracised from within her own community.
Abilieen is 56 and has been looking after white people's homes and families all her life. She has learned how to keep her head down and avoid conflict with her employers. Abilieen is an observer, and spends some time every evening, writing down her prayers; her friends all believe that there is a profound effect of being on Abilieen's prayer list. Abilieen is looking after a two year old girl and she witnesses the lack of emotional bond the child has with her mother and is disturbed by this more than than her boss's friends insisting that they should have provided a separate toilet for their coloured maid to avoid spreading diseases from blacks to whites.
Minnie is a coloured maid who is raising a family and has a husband who regularly gets drunk and aggressive. Minnie has reputation for amazing food and a loud mouth but she loses her job when the Hilly, the chairwoman of the local benefits committee, puts her own mother into care and Minnie's prospects are damaged by a vicious lie suggesting that she was dismissed because of stealing.
These three women are drawn together by the prospect of bringing about change at a time in history when it was enormously risky for whites and blacks to be so intimately involved with each other. Kathryn Stockett is able to portray a real sense of empathy with the characters and their situation and the story is both fascinating and very exciting.
The Help is a brilliant page turner and I would recommend it to anyone!

It's Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Miss Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in a search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell...

***The phenomenal international bestseller that inspired the Oscar-nominated film***Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver . . .There's Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from College, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared.Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in a search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell...'The other side of Gone with the Wind - and just as unputdownable' The Sunday Times'A big, warm girlfriend of a book' The Times'Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird has changed lives. Its direct descendent The Help has the same potential . . . an astonishing feat of accomplishment' Daily Express

The Help : Paperback : Penguin Books Ltd : 9780141039282 : : 13 May 2010 : Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver... There's Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; and, Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue.