The Help

The Help

Author	Kathryn Stockett
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Publisher	Penguin Books
Publication date	February 10, 2009
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	451
ISBN	0399155341
Dewey Decimal	813/.6 22 ,
LC Class	PS3619.T636 H45 2009 Non fiction

The Help is a 2009 novel by American author Kathryn Stockett. The story is about African American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s. A USA Today article called it one of 2009's "summer sleeper hits". An early review in The New York Times notes Stockett's "affection and intimacy buried beneath even the most seemingly impersonal household connections" and says the book is a "button-pushing, soon to be wildly popular novel". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said of the book, "This heartbreaking story is a stunning début from a gifted talent".

The novel is Stockett's first. It took her five years to complete,..., and was then rejected by 60 literary agents before agent Susan Ramer agreed to represent Stockett. The Help has since been published in 35 countries and three languages. As of August 2011, it has sold five million copies and has spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list.

The Help's audiobook version is narrated by Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and Cassandra Campbell. Spencer was Stockett's original inspiration for the character of Minny, and also plays her in the film adaptation.

Plot summary

The Help is set in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi and told primarily from the first-person perspectives of three women: Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter. Aibileen is an African-American maid who cleans houses and cares for the young children of various white families. Her first job since her own 24-year-old son died from an accident on his job is tending the Leefolt household and caring for their toddler, Mae Mobley. Minny is Aibileen's confrontational friend who frequently tells her employers what she thinks of them, resulting in having being fired from nineteen jobs. Minny's most recent employer was Mrs. Walters, mother of Hilly Holbrook. Hilly is the social leader of the community, and head of the Junior League. She is the nemesis of all three main characters.

Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is the daughter of a prominent white family whose cotton farm employs many African-Americans in the fields, as well as in the household. Skeeter has just finished college and comes home with dreams of becoming a writer. Her mother's dream is for Skeeter to get married. Skeeter frequently wonders about the sudden disappearance of Constantine, the maid who raised her. She had been writing to Skeeter while she was away at college and her last letter promised a surprise upon her homecoming. Skeeter's family tells her that Constantine abruptly quit, then went to live with relatives in Chicago. Skeeter does not believe that Constantine would just leave and continually pursues anyone she thinks has information about her to come forth, but no one will discuss the former maid.

The life that Constantine led while being the help to the Phelan family leads Skeeter to the realization that her friends' maids are treated very differently from how the white employers are treated. She decides (with the assistance of a publisher) that she wants to reveal the truth about being a colored maid in Mississippi. Skeeter struggles to communicate with the maids and gain their trust. The dangers of undertaking writing a book about African-Americans speaking out in the South during the early '60s hover constantly over the three women.

Racial issues of overcoming long-standing barriers in customs and laws are experienced by all of the characters. The lives and morals of Southern socialites are also explored.

Characters

• Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan - Recent graduate of the University of Mississippi, has returned to her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi to find a job and find herself. This leaves her open to seeing her hometown's inequitable treatment of the black domestics, primarily the female maids in the employ of her friends. Skeeter both admires and fears disappointing her mother and her friend Hilly, yet she pursues completing a manuscript called The Help with primary assistance from her good friend's maid named Abileen. She also seeks the reason her beloved maid Constantine abruptly left her family's employ.
• Aibileen Clark - A maid and nanny in Jackson, Mississippi. Abileen is the first narrator, a middle aged African American employed by Elizabeth Leefolt, Skeeter's good friend.
• Minny Jackson - The "sassy" maid, Minny's mouth has gotten her into trouble one too many times. Aibileen's friend and a character who is unable to keep employment because of her bossy demeanor and sharp tongue. After she loses her job with Miss Walters (Hilly's mother), Abileen helps her land another one with Celia Foote, who is considered white trash and is shunned by sorority sisters and socialites like Hilly and Elizabeth. Minny is married with five children and a sixth on the way.
• Hilly Holbrook - Childhood friend of Skeeter and Elizabeth, the president of the Junior League in Jackson, Mississippi. Roomed with Skeeter at Ole Miss for two years, dropped out to get married. Her husband is running for the senate, and Hilly tries to push through a sanitation initiative so that all the white homeowners have a separate bathroom (outside, like an outhouse) for the black domestics. Hilly is a woman who enjoys controlling others and striking fear into those who dare oppose her. When Skeeter begins working with the maids and subsequently has Help published, she runs afoul of big bad Hilly.
• Celia Foote - Newest resident of Jackson, Mississippi, winds up hiring Minny because she cannot cook and initially tries to hide Minny's involvement with the house cleaning and cooking from her husband, Johnny Foote. Celia has also been unsuccessful at carrying a fetus to term. Celia is unaware of the history between her husband, and Hilly (they were together prior to Johnny meeting Celia).
• Elizabeth Leefolt - employer of Aibileen, best friends with Hilly and Skeeter. Elizabeth is easily led by Hilly. She's also unable to be an affectionate mother to her daughter Mae Mobley, and so Aibleen becomes the child's primary caretaker, teacher and surrogate mother. Has a child named Ross later in the novel. Aibleen calls him Li'l Man.
• Charlotte Phelan - Skeeter's demanding, overbearing mother. She's also stricken with cancer, but tells Skeeter she has "refused to die." Skeeter has never been able to live up to her mother's ideal of how she should look and behave. Their relationship is a tenuous one. Charlotte is concerned with Skeeter being the proper lady, while Skeeter longs to be anything but.
• Stuart Whitworth - Hilly sets Skeeter up on a blind date with Stuart, a senator's son. While Stuart is handsome, charming, and appears to be smitten with Skeeter (after a disastrous blind date), when learns of her involvement with the maids' stories, he immediately takes back his engagement ring.
• Mae Mobley Leefolt - Toddler watched daily by Aibleen and one of Elizabeth Leefolt's two children. Because Mae's mother is unable and unwilling to devote time and attention to her, the child turns to Aibleen, who treats her with tenderness and love. When the novel begins Mae is two years old. By the time the novel ends, Mae is five and in school, old enough at the novel's end to beg Aibileen to stay, after Elizabeth Leefolt fires the maid at Hilly's insistence.
• Leroy Jackson - Minny's husband. He's abusive toward her and frequently drunk. He's fired from his job when Minny's involvement in the book is suspected.
• Constantine Bates - Skeeter's beloved childhood maid. The mystery behind Constantine's rather abrupt departure from the Phelan household (while Skeeter was away at college) fuels Skeeter's desire to solve the mystery of why she left, and how Aibileen and the other domestics feel about being employed by the residents of Jackson, Mississippi.
• Elaine Stein - Harper & Row Publishing house editor, "Missus Stein" as she's referred to by Skeeter in the book.

Criticism

Ida E. Jones, the national director of the Association of Black Women Historians, released an open statement criticizing The Help in An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help. The letter stated that "[d]espite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers." The group of scholars accused both the book and the film of insensitive portrayals of African American Vernacular English, a nearly uniform depiction of black men as cruel or absent, and a lack of attention given to the sexual harassment that many black women endured in their white employers’ homes. Jones concluded by saying that "The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment."

Film adaptation

Main article: The Help (film)

A film adaptation of The Help was released in 2011. The film was written and directed by Stockett's childhood friend, Tate Taylor.

Lawsuit

Abilene Cooper, a maid who used to work for Stockett's brother, has criticized the author for stealing her life story without her knowledge and sued her for $75,000 in damages. Cooper also criticized her for comparing the character's skin color to a cockroach. A Hinds County Mississippi judge threw the case out of court, citing the statute of limitations. Stockett denies Cooper's claim of stealing her likeness, and says she only met Cooper briefly.

Awards and honors

• New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 2009, 2011)
• Amazon's Best Books of the Year (#19, 2009)
• Orange Prize Longlist (2010)
• Indies Choice Book Award (Adult Debut, 2010)
• Townsend Prize (Fiction, 2010)
• Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (2009)
• SIBA Book Award (Fiction, 2010)
• International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Longlist (2011)
• Christian Science Monitor Best Book (Fiction, 2009)

See also

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• List of best-selling books