While I’ve been waiting for Kathryn Stockett’s new novel to become available from my local library, I thought it would make sense to finally cross her first novel off my list. The Help was published to huge sales and general critical acclaim in 2009 before being adapted into an Oscar-winning film. It’s the story of Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelana young white woman in Jackson, Mississippi who wants to become a writer, and because of her love for the maid who essentially raised her, hits upon the idea of putting into print the true stories of the black maids who serve Jackson’s white families. It’s a situation chock full of irony, with white families dependent on the labor of black women, even as they continue to enthusiastically support segregation and other laws that oppress black people.
The Help is, of course, also the story of the maids themselves. Most prominently, Aibileen Woods and Minny Jackson, memorably played by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer in the film, are given frequent chapters from their perspective, as their characters weigh the risks involved in telling their stories at all, and in trusting a white woman to help tell them. Thought the book and the movie both received criticism for the centrality of a white woman in the story, Stockett did take pains to render both Aibileen and Minny as fully-rounded characters who have agency and their own perspectives. While there are occasional parts that feel a little uncomfortable, for the most part Stockett is ahead of the reader, anticipating the problem and having the characters address it head-on.
The plot of The Help makes for compelling reading, as Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny try to finish their project in secrecy and keep the families employing the maids in the dark. Skeeter’s attempts to go about her normal, privileged, white life after seeing her friends and their families through the eyes of their maids leads to some complicated situations. Skeeter’s former friend Hilly is a well-crafted villain, believably heinous and a crafty adversary. I was also compelled by the subplot wherein Skeeter tries to pry out the details about what really happened to her childhood maid, Constantine. The resolution of this arc was heartbreaking.
Kathryn Stockett’s prose is immensely readable and the novel is paced extremely well. It’s very easy to see why The Help was such a hit with readers when it came out.
