The Help

Last week I finished reading the best book that I have read in a very long time. The Help, by Mississippi native Kathryn Stockett, was recommended to me by two fellow church members who had recently read it. I didn't realize until I finished it how much national attention the book is getting. There is also a movie coming out in August, although I don't know how the movie will ever do it justice. There is so much depth into the unspoken details of the book.

The book is set in Mississippi in the 60's and follows the stories of two maids (the help) and one brave young white woman in her early 20's. After feeling uneasy about how the maids are treated, such as raising the white children but not even being allowed to use the restroom in the house, Skeeter sets out to write a book uncovering the secrets of the white families from the perspective of 'the help'.

This book pushes so many buttons and really reveals the racial hell we have come through and in some ways are still dealing with. It makes me so angry to see the way people were treated simply because of their skin color. But, I was glad to see her write in some stories of the unconditional love that was shared between some of the families and their maids. It also made me remember growing up with our maid, "Dang-Dang" as we called her. Her real name was Mary Jane, but my brother called her Dang-Dang and it just stuck. Now don't get me wrong, we were not by any means like most of the snooty-fa-looty families Stockett writes about. Dang-Dang was like a family member and she and my mother became dear friends, but she didn't by any means raise my brother and I like the the stories in the book. However, the older I got the more uneasy I felt about having a "maid." I used to be so embarassed to bring friends home while she was working. I don't really know why, but I just felt weird about it. I have not kept in touch with her and/or what she is doing today (I last saw her 5 years ago at my wedding), but this book really made me think about her and how I should let her know how much she was loved and appreciated.

This book has made me somewhat ashamed to be a white woman in the South, but at the same time I will always have pride in my roots and it is my responsibility to move forward and teach my children to see everyone equally. Stockett says it best in her acknowledgments: "Once at a roof party [In New York] from a rich white Metro North-train type town asked me where I was from and I told him Mississippi. He sneered and said 'I'm Sorry.' I nailed down his foot with the stiletto portion of my shoe and spent the next ten minutes quietly educating him on the where-from-abouts of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Oprah Winfrey, Jim Henson, Faith Hill, James Earl Jones and Craig Claiborne, the food edotor and critic for the New York Times. I informed him that Mississippi hosted the first lung transplant and the first heart transplant and that the basis of the United States legal system was developed at the University of Mississippi. Mississippi is like my mother. I am allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person who raises an ill word about her around me, unless she is their mother too."

Bottom line, if you want to read a graceful, compelling novel that will give you alot to digest then look no further than The Help. I hope it touches you as it has me.