REVIEW: Book delves into civil rights movement
Should your black maid use your guest bathroom, or should she have a separate one away from the main house so as not to contaminate guests in your home? If you were a white homeowner in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962, this would be a real dilemma. Newer houses weren’t built with maid’s quarters anymore, and some houses don’t have anyplace to add on an extra bathroom. One couple in “The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett, elects to build one in the corner of their garage.
This and other day-to-day pressures and considerations of ‘60s life in the South make up the meat of this 2009 novel, but that meat is marinated in the underlying tension of the early Civil Rights Movement, segregation giving way to integration and the prejudices and resistance from every side.
Because a few characters – two black housemaids and one young, ambitious white woman – take turns narrating the story throughout the book, it feels a little jumpy at times. For almost the first third of the book, I felt this took away from the flow and it was almost jarring to have to re-orient myself to a new perspective every few chapters. However, I got used to it and even changed my mind to appreciate the switch in viewpoint; it really does give the story a well-roundedness and allows for life and intimacy you wouldn’t have access to if there were only one narrator.
The first narrator we encounter is a middle-aged black maid, Aibileen, whose grown son was killed in a workplace accident. This leaves her with seeds of doubt and bitterness growing inside her previously status quo, complacent heart just as she is beginning work for a new family, a young couple with a baby girl.
Aibileen’s job includes polishing the silver, raising the Leefolts’ daughter and serving tea and sandwiches to the ladies’ bridge club. One member of the bridge club is another narrator in the book, Skeeter Phelan. Miss Skeeter is the only one in the group to have finished college and the only one still unmarried. She is trying to become a writer and overcome insecurity about her frizzy hair and slender, 5-foot-11 frame.
The ladies’ ringleader is the bossy Hilly Holbrook, who pressures Aibileen’s boss, Miss Leefolt, to get that separate bathroom for the help, then fires her own family’s maid, Minny, for being too mouthy.
Minny is indeed mouthy, but as the best cook in town she manages to find another job for a new bride on the outskirts of town who hasn’t heard her reputation. Minny is the third narrator, and her story is tied into the main plot but also offers a fascinating subplot in her work for the frail, hapless Celia Foote.
The plot thickens when Miss Skeeter realizes she sympathizes with the black maids and tries to convince some of them to tell their stories and reveal to the world what it’s like to be a black maid in a white house. Even given anonymity, the women are terrified of the consequences and many refuse to talk to Miss Skeeter.
Intermittently throughout the microscope of the civil rights years in one society circle in one town, you catch glimpses of the broader national scene. Those moments give the story context and depth and for me, added a sense of urgency and importance.
Historical fiction, historical drama, even, is not my genre of choice. It can be upsetting to read about times and events and circumstances that seem unjust when you know it’s history – not only can you do nothing to change it, it’s real. Yes, this is a novel, but Medgar Evers was really shot and killed in his own front yard for his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
There were really people who thought this was okay. People, black and white, really feared for their lives just because they had opinions and wanted things to be better for their children and their children’s children. And that is hard to read about, especially when you know it happened in your country, barely more than a generation ago.
Those harsh facts and the honest depiction of real life through made-up people and situations that can make it difficult, even undesirable reading are what makes it important that it be read.
This book is long – nearly 450 pages – and sometimes it feels that way, but the human interest and mystery elements of the plot kept me reading. I expect you will, too.
If you like “The Secret Life of Bees” – the book or the movie – you will enjoy this. It’s also prime reading material for those with an interest in American history, psychology, literature, journalism or people in general. Even though the book is told entirely by women, the husbands, boyfriends, brothers and even mayor or bus driver all have an effect on their lives and interactions. I guarantee you will be surprised, excited, scared, pained, moved and angry throughout the course of this novel. If you are offended by cursing, be warned that there is some. But, any offensive content is pretty squarely in the category of historical context, so I would consider this book appropriate for ages 13 and up.
– chelsey.gensel@aggiemail.usu.edu