The Help 
by Kathryn StockettUnbidden images of Gone With the Wind popped into my head and played out when I first started reading the stories of Aibileen and the other black maids, until I discovered that some of those same maids were college educated and reading classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and even some Freud. I had to stop and think, this story is in fact based in 1962, almost a hundred years since the slaves were set free. So what has happened in 100 years? According to this story, subservient slave labor is alive and well, except that these black women are employees instead of property.
The book spans the time from 1962-1964 in Jackson, Mississippi, the civil rights movement is rumbling. Almost everything is still segregated, except for the bus, "We sit anywhere we want to now thanks to Miss Parks." In the background of the story, Mississippi is featured in Life magazine twice in two months for its racial unrest, Martin Luther King is planning his big march on Washington, and President Kennedy is shot. But in the foreground are the black maids and their stories, the everyday life of these women is fascinating reading, the things they had to endure, the joys and hardships. You can tell yourself this is a fiction book, but you know deep down that these things really did happen, a sad and shameful time in our Southern history.
I really enjoyed this book, it is funny and sad and serious and suspenseful and totally believable. As I am sure the author intended, I found myself rooting for the maids and abhorring their white bosses. For such an oppressing topic, it was a thoroughly great read.
