This year's very first Guest Reviewer is Esme, from Chocolate and Croissants!
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From Kathryn Stockett...
"Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. 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. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. 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. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. 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."
Sometimes you read a book that speaks to you from the heart, The Help is one of those books. Author Kathryn Stockett brings to life the story of three women living in Jackson Mississippi in the early 60's as the civil rights movement was reaching the deep South.
For me, I was able to picture the women, the homes they lived in and their friends. First time novelist, does a wonderful job of bringing her characters to life. The women are seemingly as different from one another as can be, but 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.
Each woman has her own cross to bear and social graces to maintain. Skeeter, a recent college graduate returns to her parent's home after graduation. Yearning to be a journalist, her mother is more concerned about Skeeter's clothes and hair and the trust fund that she find her a suitable husband. Hoping to land a job at a publishing house Skeeter writes the stories of black maids in Jackson. Her main ally is Aiblileen, an older wise maid raising her seventeenth white child. Aibileen is troubled that the children she raises may become an extension of their parent's racism. Suffering from the loss of her own child, she empowers Mae Moberly to realize, she is important, smart and beautiful. At the risk of being fired she teaches the little girl lessons about Martian Luther King and that love comes from what is inside of you. Minny, Aibileen's best friend is the best cook in Jackson, but loses her jobs because she sasses the missus back. Together the three women rally the black maid community to tell their stories.
What fascinated me about the book was the author's impetus for the story. Raised in Jackson herself. Her family had a maid, Demetrie. Stockett loved her maid, after her parents divorced her maid was a surrogate mother for her. Someone's shoulder she could cry on or a lap to crawl on.
To quote Stockett " Our family maid, Demetrie, used to say picking cotton in Mississippi in the dead of summer is about the worst pastime there is, if you don't count picking okra, another prickly, low-growing thing. Demetrie used to tell us all kinds of stores about picking cotton as a girl. She'd laugh and shaker her finger at us, waring us against it, as if a bunch of rich white kids might fall to the evils of cotton-picking like cigarettes or hard liquor." Demetrie was born in Lampkin, Mississippi, in 1927. It was a horrifying year to be born, just before the Depression set in. No-one ever asked Demetrie her story, what it was like to work for a white family.
There is one line in The Help, the author truly prizes, which brings home the point of the book. We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought.
If you can fit one more book onto your bookshelf for the year. Chose The Help.
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Esme, thank you so much for the great review! Please stop by Chocolate and Croissants and share some book love! Check out her original review here.