113. The Help - Kathryn Stockett

Without a doubt, this book has jumped to the number one spot of my "best fiction books" list. My blog followers know that I hate reading books that are more than 400 pages long - but I couldn't put this 458-pager down. It was worth every page!

The story follows black maids and the white families they work for in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960's. It's told from the perspective of three different women. Skeeter Phelan is a white, college-educated woman who wants to be a writer, but her mother won't be happy until Skeeter's frizzy hair is tamed, she keeps lipstick on, and she finds a husband. Aibileen (my favorite) is the maid for the family of Skeeter's friend, Elizabeth Leefolt. Aibileen is an amazing and brave woman who has raised seventeen white children, but who still feels pain over the loss of her own son several years ago. Minny is Aibileen's best friend, and has a mouth on her that's gotten her fired from almost twenty different jobs. But she can cook better than anyone, so with some finagling from Aibileen, she manages to land a job working for Miss Celia - a busty blond who "wears more goo on her face than a hooker" and who the other white women in Jackson can't stand.

When Skeeter has a shot at writing a book that could get in front of the eyes of a New York editor, she decides to write anonymously about the experiences of black maids in Jackson. After the difficulty of convincing these black women with families to share their stories with an inexperienced white woman during the tumultuous '60's, Skeeter hears stories of the pain behind them being forced by their employers to use separate bathrooms - usually, out in the garage - because of "Negro diseases" and the white children they raise who call them "mama" and then grow up ordering them around and accuse them of stealing. The maids risk a lot to come together and share their stories with Skeeter, who has her own problems with her friends in the Junior League finding out what she's doing and accusing her of being an integrationist, her ailing mother, and her relationship with the son of a prominent state senator.

The dialect in which most of the book is written; the depth of the characters; the detail with which Stockett writes ... when I was at work for the past few days, all I wanted to do was run home and read this book! I couldn't recommend anything any more highly. I know this book came out last year, but Stockett lives in Atlanta and so I hope she makes a stop for a reading/signing at a local Borders; and it's already being made into a movie, so I will be first in line for tickets when it comes out!!