Recently a friend lent me a copy of The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I’d heard about this book and knew it was one of those unlikely first novels by an unknown author that is catapulted to success primarily through word of mouth. It sounded like something I would enjoy, and it was on my ever growing list of “must get to someday” books; not urgent, but worth checking out when I had the time.
What made it a little different for me was that my friend was lending me an audio book rather than a traditional printed book. Now I know that audio books are very popular and that legions of fans absolutely love listening to audio books at home or in their cars. I was not one of these fans. The idea of listening to a book while driving, having to break off at an interesting part when I arrived at my destination, or fumbling to put in a new CD while trying to pay attention to the road did not much appeal to me.
But I had this 15 disc CD volume of The Help with a fervent declaration from my friend that I MUST listen to it. So what else could I do but pop in a CD one day on my way to work and start listening?
Immediately, I was hooked. The Help takes place in the Jim Crow South, in Mississippi in the early 1960’s. Segregation, no matter how brutal or demeaning, is a way of life, with few willing or able to challenge it. Many white families in Jackson Mississippi had maids to clean their houses and raise their children, and these maids were inevitably black women or “colored” as they were called.
The cruel irony of a black woman raising a white child who then goes on to embrace segregation and hire his or her own black servants is one of the driving themes of The Help. Simply put, this story is told through the eyes of three characters: Aibileen, a compassionate maid who has raised white children for 40 years; Minnie, a firebrand whose quick temper gets her fired from her servant jobs every year or so; and Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, a young college educated white woman who doesn’
Avene Emollient Soap Free