I'm sure we were probably the last book club to read this book, and even more surprising, none of us had seen the movie yet, so we had the benefit of starting this with a completely clean slate. Personally, I hadn't paid much attention to the trailers, so the only actress I knew was in the movie was Emma Stone who played Skeeter. Try as I might, I could not get the image of Emma Stone out of my head as this book unfolded in my head, but I was able to put whoever I wanted into the other roles, which was quite fun. (P.S. I don't know who was cast for Hilly but in my mind, Rachel McAdams channeling her role in Mean Girls was dead-on!)
The Help is about a 20-something woman named Skeeter who in trying to become a journalist decides to write a book about what it is like to work for white women in the South from the point of view of the maids. Skeeter herself was raised by a maid for whom she cared dearly, but whose sudden departure from her family was shrouded in mystery. After listening to her friends discuss the colored bathroom initiative (which dictated that maids use their own bathroom in their white employers' garages to prevent the spread of "diseases"), Skeeter begins to think about this notion of racial separation and goes about her mission interviewing the maids and in the process, gathering some great stories - both touching and heartbreaking.
Skeeter's story, which chronicles the writing of her book as well as her relationships with her friends, boyfriend, mother, and maids, is interwoven with the tales of the two main characters - Aibileen and Minny (maids to two very different white women). For me, the most touching part of Aibileen's tale is the bond she forms with her white lady's child juxtaposed against the relationship between the mother and child. Minny's story had two themes that really struck me - the tough exterior she projects in her employers' homes while suppressing the fragile, weak woman inside, and of course the 'Terrible Awful'. You'll have to read the book to learn what that is. Ha!
My only complaint about this book is that it ended without any resolution. Skeeter's book was published and she became a journalist in NYC as a result, but the tension between the maids and their white employers continued. But, I think maybe that's the point. Skeeter's book didn't change the world. The desegregation battle raged on for far too long...
Our discussion of this book mainly circulated around the idea that this actually happened all over America only 50 years ago, and that in parts of our own city, the high society women still treat their staff like this, which begs the question, how far have we really come?
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