Tuesday, March 19, 2019

'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett



Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women:

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. Minny, Aibileen’s is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.


MY THOUGHTS:

I'm late on this book's bandwagon, but bought a copy from a second hand shop and finally got around to reading it. I get anxious about starting books with themes of racism. There's bound to be deep sadness, and in our current era of strict political correctness, do these stories even apply the balm of kindness we all need, or simply act as a match to a highly charged tinder box? There's no point trying to heal a deep wound by always picking at the scars. So I was nervous going in, but it turns out I needn't have been. There's a lot to love about this To Kill a Mockingbird/Upstairs Downstairs hybrid. It's all about being a good and decent person.

The story is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960's, when racial discrimination was still as ugly as ever. It seemed the only real job prospect for a coloured woman was a maid and cleaner, and there were many white women demanding their service. 'The help' would basically bring up the children of their snooty employers, who then wondered why their kids preferred the hired people. Most folk accepted the status quo, until a trio of women rocked the boat with a top secret assignment, proving that the written word can pack a powerful punch.

White girl Eugenia (Skeeter) Phelan is upset when her beloved family maid Constantine is fired while she's away at college. It prompts her to consider writing a book full of interviews with coloured maids, but it's hard to find any takers for such a subversive act. Especially because coloured people are automatically suspicious when white folk are nice to them, with good reason. But eventually she gets Aibileen and Minny on board, who have been pushed far enough to realise that the time is ripe for speaking up.

These three narrators switch frequently throughout the story, and it's done so well that that when each one ends, we shake our heads moving on to the next, but are soon hooked by that thread too. It's all about cleaning and childcare of course, but has suspense and mystery. Why must Minny hide her presence from her boss's husband? What was the big surprise Constantine had in store for Skeeter, which she never discovered? Will Aibileen ever be caught when she tries to build up the confidence of Mae Mobley, the little daughter of her employers? 

Skeeter becomes one of those self-sacrificial writers who are called to put everything on the line, although she never sets out to be. Her bright idea begins as nothing more than a brainwave to help further her own career prospects. Yet it soon becomes evident to her that pursuing it might mean losing everything else important to her. Such a lot is stripped away that her only reason to continue has to be belief in the cause itself. For her more than anyone else, it's very much a personal growth story.

Minny's part of the story is very cool. She's one of the most indignant and wronged people of all, but finds herself disarmed by her new employers, Celia and Johnny Foote, who don't fit into the pattern she's grown to expect from white people. 

The villain of the piece is Hilly Holbrook, a young trendsetter who many other white ladies look to for cues as to how to think and behave. She's trouble on two legs; in a perfect position to use her social power for kindness, but choosing prejudice and meanness instead. Minny says that Hilly is sent by the devil to ruin lives. She's the sort of nasty girl who seems sweet on the surface, but spells disaster for anyone who crosses her. It's fun for readers to hate Hilly, and speculate who she'll push too far.

My favourite character, who provides the overall tone of kindness and love, is Aibileen. I'd love to be on her prayer list! They have a proven track record. She always writes them instead of speaking them, because a teacher once challenged her to keep reading and writing every day. Her own faith surely adds to their power, since she considers them to be like electricity that keeps things going. That's why she carefully considers whether it's worth the risk of adding any new folk, like Miss Skeeter. And Minny adds, 'We all on a party line to God, but you sitting right in his ear.' What a wonderful inspiration for all of us readers to think of prayer the same way, and that might be one of the best takeaways from the whole book.

🌟🌟🌟🌟½

10 comments:

  1. I also tend to read books "late". I really should read this. There is indeed a lot of acrimony going on concerning race these days. I think that it is best to try to listen to others, do ones's best to apply ethics and reason to the issue, and then do what one thinks is right.

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    1. Hi Brian, that sounds like a perfect prescription for our troubled times. And yes, by the time we get around to reading some books of note, they are certainly no longer new releases :)

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  2. I watched the movie, Paula, but it sounds like the book (as is usual when comparing book over movie) has more depth to it.

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    1. Hi Meredith, I have my eye on the movie, after seeing Emma Stone plays the role of Skeeter, and she's a great actor But yeah, sometimes you wonder how they can compress everything from a great book into a short two hours.

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  3. I cannot wait to read this, and maybe I'll move up to one of my summer reads. I loved this movie and I often wondered what the book was like. Well, you have encouraged me to hurry up and get to it.

    P.S. I got my copy at a used library sale. : ) Oh, yeah, and you're not alone coming late to the party. I'm with ya!

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    1. Ruth, I'm sure you'll really enjoy it. It's one of those easy flowing novels that basically reads itself, and you're finished before you know it.

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  4. Love a good backlist read! I missed this one too - I did watch the film a year or two ago, though, and I must say I had mixed feelings about it, which is probably why I never picked this one up. I'm glad to have read your review, because it sounds like the book does a much better job of privileging the perspective of the "help", while the film very much filtered it through a white-savior lens. Thank you!

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    1. Hi Sheree, Ah, I can imagine that possibly being the case, within a 2 hour time frame. Haven't seen the movie, but by the sound of it, the book does take a more sensitive approach, especially when she tries to breeze in and direct how things must take place from the start, and the pair of maids wise her up to the seriousness of the venture. I haven't seen it to compare the two, but the book leaves such a complete package sort of feeling, I'm not sure I'd want to rock the boat of my imagination now anyway :)

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  5. I loved this book as well. I read it a few years ago, and thought the movie did a good job of capturing the essence of the book as well as it’s plot.

    Such a rich set of characters—I could identify with Skeeter, and hope I have the courage she possessed, and I loved and admired Abileen. There were times when I felt the story creeping towards violence and my pulse would race, fearing the worst, but thankfully the author didn’t go there.

    Excellent review—makes me want to reread the book.

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    1. Hi Jane, I felt just the same, which made me nervous starting. A book with such a sober theme has the potential to take characters we love to places we don't want to find them. But The Help didn't put us through it. There's Aibileen's son Treelore, of course, but he'd already died before the book started. It was easy on the emotions, without lessening the impact of the theme in any way.

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