I know you've all heard of this novel - it's been on the NYT best seller list for months. It's the story of a number of African-American maids and the white families they work for in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960's. It's a really beautifully written story about the close and complex relationships between the rich white families and "the help."
I have to admit I was a little put off at first by Stockett's use of dialect, but I got used to it very quickly and I think it adds to the novel. The characters seem very real, there are no pure angels here (though there is one outright devil), there is good and bad among both the whites and the blacks. And there were some characters who actually surprised me, which doesn't often happen in novels.
Ultimately this is a story about people and relationships, and the changes they go through. I'm so glad I spent my MLK weekend with all these folks in Jackson, I think it was a very good use of my time.
The Help
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