Life in racially divided Mississippi

There seems to be a fashion among contemporary writers for setting their novels in the past. Sue Grafton set latest offering T for Trespass in 1987, and now, for reasons that are all to do with the plot, the story itself, Kathryn Stockett sets her very first novel The Help in 1962.

The Help is, or rather, are the black women maids and nursery maids in white families in Jackson Mississippi at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Part of the fascination of this book is that one gets to see the situation in Jackson from three points of view, first from placid, uncomplaining Aibileen, raising her 17th white child; her best friend Minny (housekeeping expert cook par excellence — and known for talking back to her employers) and “Skeeter” — Eugenia Phelan who belongs to the upper set, the white elite in Jackson.

Returning home from college “Skeeter” (short for mosquito because she is tall and skinny) is distressed to find that Constantine, the family maid who raised her, has been fired — and no one wants to tell her why. She has hopes of being a writer, writes to a New York publisher sending some samples of her work and asking for a job. An editor replies advising her to get work on a local paper and to send in an outline for a story of life in Mississippi since the State and the Civil Rights Movement is front-page news.

Skeeter gets a job on the local paper writing household hints, however, Skeeter knows next to nothing about housekeeping, at the same time she decides to write about the woman who raised her. She turns to Aibileen, one her best friend’s maids and Minny — who was fired by leader of young white society (and best friend of Skeeter) Hilly Holbrook who falsely accused Minny of stealing some silver.

At first Skeeter doesn’t appreciate the risks Aibileen and Minny run in telling her their experiences working for white families, little realising that to speak to her on what, due to their employment, they can’t help knowing about the families they work for and the way they themselves are treated could be very dangerous. The KKK are active, in the course of this book and close to Aibileen’s home Medgar Ever is gunned down in front of his family, a working man is blinded when the KKK beat him up for mistakenly using a white bathroom.

Skeeter sends an outline of her story to the New York publisher who encourages her to make it into a book. There is nail-biting excitement in the risks the characters run to meet and the race to beat the publisher’s deadline. There is humour, too (while the Ladies League, an exclusive club, won’t give a penny to the local poor black children, they organise an annual bazaar to raise funds to feed poor black African children).

One ends this review where it began — with wondering why on earth this book hasn’t (at least as yet) been selected as Book-Of-The-Month by Oprah Winfrey because it certainly gets my vote as one of the most enthralling novels I’ve read in the past year. Drop by Nigel Khan bookseller ASAP to get your copy of The Help by Kathryn Stockett before they’re all sold out.