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Synopsis

In Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. Black maids raise the white children, but no one trusts them not to steal the silver. Black maids clean the toilets, but they have their own at the back of the house. There are lines, and no one crosses them.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home from college: she may have a degree, but her mother won't be happy until Skeeter has a ring on her finger. She would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared.

Aibileen is a black maid, a smart woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her since the death of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. Aibileen's best friend is Minny, short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue.

Seemingly as different as can be, these women will come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? For what?

The Help is about how women, whether mothers or daughters, the help or the boss, relate to each other. It's about the emotions of domestic life: pride, competition on the cooking and home front, and the horrible feeling that those who look after your children may understand them and deal with them - love them, even - better than you ...

With pitch-perfect writing, Kathryn Stockett introduces us to three extraordinary women. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humour and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

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Reviews

Customer Review: 07 August 2009

Reviewer: Anne-Marie Stewart

'Winnipeg, MB,Canada This book is so real you wouldn''t know it was fiction. very well written; honest; insightful and at times has you thinking "was the southern US really like that?"...yes it really was! Excellent read! I read it in my home on the Canadian Prairies in minus28deg. temps this winter...didn''t want to put it down. '

Critic Review:

'It weaves together the beginnings of black rights but also of women's rights. We learn that one of the characters, Skeeter, is as trapped by the expectations of her parents and friends as are the black women she writes about. It also shows how, despite the lack of equality distorting the realtionships between the women, there was room for genuine friendship and affection, as well as incredible callousness.'
Cherie Blair

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