Bibliosearcher: Information about The Help

Product Information:
Pages: 464
Publication Date: 13/05/2010
Publisher: Penguin
Binding: Paperback
ISBN 10: 0141039280
ISBN 13: 9780141039282

Editorial Review
It's Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Miss Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in a search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell...

Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating:

Exceeded Expectations
I bought this book as an afterthought when placing an order for my holiday reads. I didn't think that the theme of the book was one that would instantly grab me and I had no expectations, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The story was thoroughly engaging from the outset; very well written with engaging characters. I ploughed through it and although it was a light read, the issues it addressed clearly weren't. I highly recommend this book.

Excellent
Much better than I expected, I bought it because of the reviews and it stands up very well. Amazing insight into how things were in the Southern States and not all that long ago. Hard to believe that it was the sixties and not earlier.
The characters are engaging and you just know that you want one of them in particular to get their come uppance!!!!!!!

Black Maids Speak---and it's GOOD!

The Help
by Kathryn Stockett

Book Review by Jay Gilbertson

Though this novel has soared up every chart, what drew me in and kept me reading was author Stockett's risky writing technique. Using first person, (meaning the reader is seeing the world from one perspective) the novel is told through the eyes of three very different women. The tale opens in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi and if you haven't figured it out yet, the main theme concerns the domestic help--the maids.

Two out of the three characters saved this work from completely tanking; Aibileen and Minny. Though heavy on the caricature side, their voices and concerns and harsh realities were the thunder in this perfect storm of racial tension about to rip open. As the maids rub and scrub the homes of the privileged white women, they also care for their children. What's significant is the nature of these exploited maids in that they choose to love and care for them as if they were their own.

The opening:

"Mae Mobley was born on a early Sunday morning in August, 1960. A church baby we like to call it. Taking care a white babies, that's what I do, along with all the cooking and the cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime. I know how to get them babies to sleep, stop crying, and go in the toilet bowl before they mamas even get out a bed in the morning..."

The interaction of the `maid-network' and how they manage to find some crumbs of pride and wring a few drops of happiness out of a really rotten situation should have been the theme. Should have.

Enter Eugenia Phelan or Skeeter as everyone but her mother calls her. A college graduate with all the trimmings of a rich southern girl--minus one--no man in sight. Here is where The Help morphed into cliché-ville . Since Skeeter can't seem to attract the proper blood-line in accordance to her mother's long list of family- tie-must-haves, she realizes her only escape from the plantation is to land a book deal. She sets out to interview (steal) as many of the maid's tales of what really went on during their day. Some of the stories are brutal and filled me with shame, while a few others offered a big helping of my favorite dish; hope. That is the road this book should have taken.

In the end, Skeeter's book is a big success and off to New York, contract in hand, she goes. As for the other two women, it's not so clear. Then I learned exactly why the author was so intent on having Skeeter presented as a sugar-coated-helpful-white-lady. After the novel ends, the author had added: `Kathryn Stockett, in her own words.' Basically, Stockett limply confesses her guilt for never having asked her very own family maid this one question: What did it feel like to be black in Mississippi, working for her white family?

I would imagine she already knew...

The Help
Utterly utterly brilliant, this book is one in million and destined to be a classic. To not read it would be a travesty. I laughed, and I cried oh my! you must read this book, it's a delight on so many levels with characters you love and some you'll hate. This should've been shortlisted for a host of prizes. Beautiful heartfelt, just lovely.

Wonderful
I loved one of the comments on the back cover of this book: "A laugh-out-loud, vociferously angry must-read". I would only add "Unequivocally poignant and touching".
I would give it 10 stars if I could. Love, hate, integration, familial relationships, tolerance, hope... this is what the book is about. A delightful, funny, moving read. Upsetting and uplifting at the same time.

Jackson, Mississippi, 1960s. When racial integration was still hardly tolerated, the respective paths of two black maids and a white lady belonging to the upper class circle cross. Their personal tales interweave and blend, with a project in mind which will ultimately rock the proverbial boat.

Each main character writes in first person: Aibileen, who is raising her umpteenth white child with love and dedication while constantly thinking of her own son, now dead.

Minny, Aibileen's close friend, married with several children of her own, a maid with a soft heart but a sharp tongue which gets her into trouble more often than not.

Miss Skeeter, a white lady with her own dreams, whose unconventional ideas contrast mildly, and later on, sharply with the society and family she was born into. She also wants to find out why the adored black maid who raised her, Constantine, has inexplicably disappeared. No one is willing to tell her.

Each lady is surrounded by her own sets of characters in the background, characters that however are primary pawns to what will eventually happen.

The author gives voice to Aibileen's and Minny's language superbly. You will find a language contrast between the well-schooled Miss Skeeter and both maids, which renders a vivid and true portrait of their lives and views.

This is, in my opinion, a rare timeless piece of narrative, which will make you think as well as entertain you like very few books can. Wonderful, really wonderful. Well done to the author Ms. Kathryn Stockett!

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Subjects > Fiction > Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards