Help by Kathryn Stockett

Help is a New York Times bestseller and rightfully so. I bought this book for my MIL (mother-in-law for those not up on their internet-speak) for Christmas. I badgered her to lend it to me when it kept hanging on to the bestsellers lists. As she handed it to me she said, “Can you get it back fairly quickly? I have a bunch of people who want to borrow it.” Help is fairly long but I was able to get through it in about two weeks.

The story gracefully lays out the feelings and thoughts of a group of black maids living in Mississippi in the fifties. It’s told from various points of view starting with, Abileen, one of the maids narrating her feelings about her employer, a white woman. The dialect is spot on especially considering the author is a young white woman. In the first few chapters Abileen works at a bridge party for her boss. One of the women at the bridge party approaches Abileen about writing a book based on the experiences of black maids living in Mississippi. This being the time of Martin Luther King and not AFTER Martin Luther King, the maids are reluctant but eventually capitulate and begin meeting with the writer.

Many of the stories about the maids’ treatment are hard to read – cringe inducing really – but no doubt based on true accounts as reported by black maids at that time. One story in which the “popular” white woman suggests her friends install bathrooms for their coloreds so whites don’t get their diseases, is particularly offensive but, in the end, the writer and her protégé retaliate in a way that makes you laugh out loud (or lol for us cool folks).

There weren’t any down chapters or slow parts to this book. The characters were well rounded, eccentric and believable. The plot was interesting and had you longing for the book, the fruit of their many heart wrenching meetings, to be published.

Help is a novel you should buy and lend to your friends.

Kathryn Stockett's web site: http://www.kathrynstockett.com/

N.B. This weekend author Randy Susan Meyer is coming to the South Shore to speak about her new novel The Murderer’s Daughters. She will be at the North River Arts Society in Marshfield on Saturday at 2pm and then at the Duxbury Library at 2pm. If you are interested check it out!