The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. All of her friends are married and having children, leaving Skeeter feeling like an old maid. Her friend Hilly sets her up with a senator's son with mixed results. Her circumstances make her tied to staying with her disapproving mother and feeling like there is no future.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Aibileen is suffering from a silent rage which makes her respond to Miss Skeeter and sets all their lives in motion.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. But Minny has her own problems, a drunk of a husband who beats her, leaving her future uncertain. So she keeps herself pregnant as then her husband usually leaves her alone.

Skeeter wants to be a writer but all she can find is a column about writing household hints, since she knows nothing about running a household she relies on her friend Elizabeth's maid Aibileen to help her out. But until she finds something to really write about she will never become a writer. After a chance conversation with a book editor from NYC Skeeter decides to start writing about the help of the women she are friends with. Aibileen is her first interview and then Minny does too but 2 interviews are not enough and it isn't until Skeeter is herself austersied from her community do other maids decide to step up and tell their stories. Some are happy and some are terrible but all ring true. Skeeter changed the names and the locations but it doesn't take long for the people of Jackson to figure it out. When it finally the truth comes to light what will happen?

It is an interesting mix of historical fiction during a time of tremendous turmoil in the US. JFK had just been assassinated, MLK was stirring things up and you see the different sides of the story from the stories told. I really enjoyed this glimpse into a very exciting time of American history.