The Help

I know that it has been quite a long time since my last post, but I have been very busy! I finally finished a book I have been working on but it was a spur of the moment purchase from a grocery store. I was buying contact solution in the pharmacy isle and while I was walking to the checkout counter I passed by a copy of a book I have heard lots of great things about. The Help is a book about racial tensions in the south. Set in the 60’s detailing the relationships between the southern house wives and the black help that raise their children. It is touching, beautiful, and sad.




Here is a plot summary:

The book is written in first person narrative from three different perspectives. The first is a black woman in her late 50’s named Aibileen, who is a maid in a middle class house in Jackson, Mississippi. The second is Minny, also a maid, who has a large family and is in her mid-30s. Last is Eugenia (Skeeter) who is the daughter of a wealthy plantation farmer, and has been to college and received her bachelor’s degree.
The book starts with Aibileen telling about her life and her job. She works for the Leefolt’s who neglect their daughter. They treat her with disrespect, but that isn’t anything new, and they are not cruel to her like some families are with their maids. However, when Mrs. Leefolt’s friend Hilly suggests that they build a separate bathroom so they don’t have to use the same one as Aibileen, he employer jumps on the idea. Aibileen has had too many jobs to fight back, but you feel her anger and disappointment at the stupidity of people. Aibileen is the quiet wise presence in the book. She tells how her only son Treelore dies and how it has eaten at her, and of her love for the Leefolt’s little girl, Mae Mobley.
The next perspective comes from Minny, who is Aibileen’s sassy, irreverent friend. She starts her story right after she has been let go from her previous position as a maid to Hilly’s mother Miss Walters. It tells of how she goes everywhere and cannot find anyone who is interested in hiring her. She soon finds out that Hilly has been spreading lies about her being a thief so no one else will hire her. On the day that her position is ending Hilly tells Minny that she will hire her as her maid, but Minny states that she would never take away the job of Hilly’s current maid who is her friend. She tells Hilly to “Eat her shit.” She then goes home and bakes a very special pie for Hilly. The next day she comes back to the house and says she is there to apologize. That she baked a chocolate custard pie especially for Hilly. The horrible woman eats two whole pieces before Minny tells her that she has baked her own excrement into it. Minny finds a job in a kind newcomer to the town, Celia Foote. No one in town will associate with her because she is “tacky”, and “white trash”. Minny goes to work for her but Celia makes Minny promise not to tell her husband Johnny that she is working there. Minny talks about her abusive husband and her children. She is feisty and full of life, the way she describes her life is the same.
Skeeter talks about her love for her previous maid Constantine, the woman who raised her. When Skeeter get home from college Constantine has mysteriously disappeared, and her mother will not tell her anything about why she left or where she has gone. Skeeter tells us about how her mother is always telling her she is too tall and how her hair is too frizzy. Through the whole thing it states that the love she feels for Constantine is very similar if not the same kind of love she feels for her mother. She talks of how she feels she will never be married or have the kind of life her mother wants for her. She longs for a writing career. In a hopeful but futile attempt at securing a job, she contacts Harper and Row publishing and the senior editor writes her to let her know that she admires her spunk and gives her career advice. Skeeter gets an idea to write a book detailing what it is like to work as a black maid for white families. Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny all get together to write the book. It is anonymous, and the names are have been changed. Aibileen and Minny recruit several of their other maid friends and the book comes together and is published. They don’t cover their tracks quite well enough and people find out who wrote the book, but because of the anonymous nature of the book, no one wants to fire their maids from fear of other people knowing they are chapter 8. The book ends on a hopeful note and leaves the reader feeling like things are on their way to getting better.


I must say that I am very surprised by how much I liked this book. It is heartfelt and sweet. You grow to love the characters, and feel for all of them. The villain is well thought out and multi faceted and the heroines are brave and wise. It is a feel good hit, and there is no question in my mind about why it was number one on the bestseller’s list for so long. I’m aware that this book has been around for a quite awhile but I am so glad that I finally decided to read it. It was touching and uplifting. I can’t wait to see other things from this author. Her understanding of how women speak to each other and interact is spot on and her writing style is touching and believable. I give this book 5 out of 5. I enjoyed it immensely.