It's hard to categorize a book like
The Help. Part fiction, part history, part ethnography, part biography, part autobiography, part coming-of-age story... Kathryn Stockett has put all these genres into a blender, added a liberal helping of sweet tea and pressed blend.
It took a while to get the steam rolling, as with so many books, but by the time the three protagonists – nerdy white girl - slash - (fellow!) journalist Skeeter and the two black maids, hotheaded Minny and motherly Abileen – were secretly meeting to write their book, I was hooked. I finished the entire second half in one sitting.
Stockett writes about the south as only one who is intimately familiar with it can, and (even though I'm not technically from the south) so much of this book hit home with me – from the brief snippets of southern sorority life ("
A Chi Omega never walks with a cigarette.") to the distinct drawl to the sometimes old-fashioned, sometimes elitist attitudes.
One thing I was particularly impressed with is that while there are clearly characters you are meant to cheer for and those you are meant to root against, no character is painted black or white (play on words unintended, but appreciated). Even the most loathsome female character, Junior League President and resident mean girl Hilly Holbrook, has redeeming qualities – at least she truly loves and appreciates her children, which is more than can be said for the generally more sympathetic Elizabeth Leefolt. All the characters have flaws as well as worthy traits. They all have secrets and shames that they share or hide.
In the same way, Mississippi of the 60's isn't necessarily portrayed in a glowing light, but nor is it the uncouth, dangerous, uneducated place it can be known as. It is fleshed out, the good and the bad. It's real.
Anyone who is remotely interested in southern culture, race relations in the U.S., the civil rights movement or good storytelling should read this book. We think we've come so far from separate bathrooms, but this book reminds us that, despite our progress, we are still much the same as we were in the 1960’s – for better or worse. In this way,
The Help manages to feel both historical and somehow modern.
Beyond the universality of the larger themes, though, I think this book is especially wonderful to read as a Jacksonian or a Mississippian. New York, Boston and L.A. have their books and movies in spades. But to read Corinth, Mississippi and Ole Miss and Millsaps College in a New York Times bestseller is pretty cool.
In the back of the book, Stockett wrote a short essay explaining why she wrote
The Help. In it, she puts into words the complicated relationship I think many of us have with our state (I lived there for eight years, I'm totally claiming it).
The whole essay can be found on her website, but this is the excerpt I relate to the most:
The rash of negative accounts about Mississippi, in the movies, in the papers, on television, have made us natives a wary, defensive bunch. We are full of pride and shame, but mostly pride.
Still, I got out of there. I moved to New York City when I was twenty-four. I learned that the first question anyone asked anybody, in a town so transient, was “Where are you from?” And I’d say, “Mississippi.” And then I’d wait.
To people who smiled and said, “I’ve heard it’s beautiful down there,” I’d say, “My hometown is number three in the nation for gang-related murders.” To people who said, “God you must be glad to be out of that place,” I’d bristle and say, “What do you know? It’s beautiful down there.”
Once, at a roof party, a drunk man from a rich white Metro North-train type of town asked me where I was from and I told him Mississippi. He sneered and said, “I am so sorry.”
I nailed his foot down 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 Clairborne, the food editor 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.
I was homesick and I’d been waiting for somebody like him.
I wasn’t very genteel or ladylike, and the poor guy squirmed away and looked nervous for the rest of the party. But I couldn’t help it.
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.
I love this. It can't be said much better.
Although I seriously doubt the movie will top the book (no offense any of the filmmakers, I simply believe the book is better than the movie in 98% of all cases), I am really looking forward to the film version. Not only because it stars my current girlcrush Emma Stone, but also because I can't wait to see Jackson and Stockett's characters brought to life on the big screen.
I read that the filmmaker directing the upcoming movie version is a friend of Stockett's from way back and also grew up in Jackson, MS. She insisted that the movie be filmed in their home state and told
Entertainment Weekly, "We dumped, like, 17 million bucks into a very poor county in Mississippi.”
I'm proud of that too. Because Mississippi is my mother too.
