Book Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

By Carlotta G. Holton

The Help is a literary treat. It exemplifies regional writing at its finest. In setting her novel in the midst of the racial struggles of the 1960s civil rights movement, Stockett combines the craft of good storytelling with the message of human rights and dignity.

Variously told by several black maids from Jackson, Mississippi and Eugenia Skeeter Phelan, a young white college graduate and would-be writer, the tale shines light on the plight of blacks and their hopes for equality in a tumultuous time in American history. To protect their positions in society, the women decide to anonymously publish a book with a major New York publishing house.

Stockett's characters are to be savored. They are rich with life and emotions, and the reader is affected by their joys and sorrows. Aibilene, the eldest of the maids, takes pride in her 17 charges – the white children she has raised. Since the death of her own son, she has put her heart and soul into taking care of little Mae Mobely, though she knows her position is tenuous. Her effort to help the child learn that all colors are equal is undermined by the cruel reality that the family has created a toilet in the garage for her to use because “blacks carry disease.” There is a bitter sweetness to these touching stories of how maids were allowed to help with personal crises, yet denied access to public toilets and the library.

Another maid, Minny, whose husband regularly beats her except when she is pregnant, can't hold her tongue on the job but fears her spouse. Though her efforts to teach her employer the art of cooking fail, both women learn to rely on each other when faced with an assault. Sometimes stories told from more than one point of view can be confusing. Not the case here. Each voice contributes to the overall tone of the book.

Stockett reminds readers of the dilemma blacks faced in a community characterized by the misguided charitable efforts of white women. She describes “a room full of cake-eating, Tab-drinking, cigarette-smoking women” who plan a fundraiser for the “poor starving children of Africa,” while ignoring the struggling blacks in their own community.

Liker her conspirators on this writing project, Skeeter understands being an outsider. From the onset we learn that she has a different status than her Junior League married friends. Single and very tall, with hair problems of her own, she has empathy for the black women who work for the wealthy only to return nightly to their impoverished homes.

As a fan of regional settings, I found Stockett's South lush and volatile. It is present in the sultry heat that makes it hard to breathe. It is evident also in the seething and mostly covert anger behind closed curtains on the black side of town when local Medgard Evans in murdered.

Despite their adversities, the characters in The Help all transform in one way or another, and bonds develop between them that foster thoughts of racial equality. Aibilen draws her own conclusions about the long-held prejudices: “I used to believe in em. I don't anymore. They in our heads. People like Miss Hilly is always trying to make us believe they there. But they ain't. Some folks just made those up, long time ago and that go for the white trash and the so-ciety ladies too.”

In the vein of Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird – incidentally read by on of the maids – Stockton's book captures with real sensitivity the pulse of the Deep South in a decade of cruelty and change. A highly enjoyable read, this touching debut boldly announces Stockton as a noteworthy young author.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact, Touching The Dead and Vampire Resurrection, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.