THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett, 2009.

Even though snow is falling outside as I finish this, it was easy to feel the heat and humidity of a Mississippi summer while reading this book. Stockett's debut novel concerns three women (one white, two black) living in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962. Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan is 22, an Ole Miss graduate, who is living back at home and who yearns for something meaningful in her life. She wishes her maid (caregiver) Constantine were around to give her support and comfort, but she has disappeared and no one will tell her what happened...Skeeter also realizes that life in the South between the races is not as it should be and wants to help somehow. Aibilene is a black maid, wise and dignified and kind, who has raised 16 white children as her own, and loves her current charge Mae Mobley enough to teach her a better way to live even though it could cost her everything and continues to mourn her only child--killed on his job while white coworkers looked on. Sassy and smart Minny is a great cook but doesn't know when to shut up and keeps losing jobs, but is loyal and true to her friends. These three determined females come together to work on a secret project that could start a movement and change everything in their town. In the process they learn much about each other and what it means to be black and white and female in the South, about barriers, about lines that can't be crossed and how to gain the courage to try. At times heartbreaking and sometimes funny, the author portrays life during that time and place honestly and painfully, with all the moonlight and magnolias and scars of slavery and racial prejudice and hatred on both sides.

Stockett knows how to write well, her language and dialogue are spot on, her descriptive passages are well done, and her characters seem real. She is able to portray both black and white characters equally well. She knows the South of the Sixties and what it was like growing up with a black servant. It all comes together as a very appealing and readable story and in the hands of a good screenwriter, it would make an excellent movie. As someone who grew up in the South during this period with a black caregiver, I found it really resonated with me in some small ways, and I think it will be one of those books that will continue to linger in my memory years from now.