The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

This historical fiction novel focuses on the fascinating and complex relationships between vastly different members of a southern community in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college, and to the dislike of her mother, without a ring on her finger. Anxious to become a writer, she begins collecting stories from the black women on whom the country club set relies and mistrusts. Enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who's raised 17 children, and Aibileen's best friend Minny, perhaps the most outspoken maid in town, Skeeter delves deeper into the racial divides that palpitate throughout the community. With point of views and characterizations from each set of society, this book communicates with truth and honesty the highly charged atmosphere and feelings prominent in the pre-civil rights movement of the late '60's.

-- Martha Riley, Faculty