The Help : Kathryn Stockett

                                   Image Credit : Dailymail
Kathryn Stockett's debut novel, The Help, is one of the best-sellers of the year. It had been on my wish list for so long now - but an exorbitant price tag kept me from buying it before Birdy gifted it to me. And what a gift it turned out to be!

The Help deserves to be on the best-seller list. It is riveting, entertaining, moving and just guaranteed to make you stay up till the wee hours trying to find out what happens to Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minny. Stockett has not crafted a boring, politically-charged novel dealing with racist issues in Mississippi in the 1960s but what she has cleverly done is to infuse human emotion to the dodgy issue of race, and create characters whose lives resonate in your mind long after you lay down the book. Aibileen and Minny are the black maids - best friends - but each different from each other. Aibileen is wise, touched by pain after losing her only son, and is raising her 17th child as a help, Minny is the fire-brand, volatile, funny yet so lovable. And there is Skeeter Phelan, a white woman, and a new graduate who starts to question the need for a black-only bathroom for the helps who work in white households, and eventually with the help of Aibileen and Minny has the courage to begin a project that is bound to change the lives of those in Jackson, Mississippi forever.

There are lots of colors to this novel : Stockett is a white woman who attempts a black woman's voice through Aibileen and Minny. She is also the white woman's voice in Skeeter. She manages both skilfully, and I found the language endearing and readable in both voices. There is also the villain-of-the-piece in Miss Hilly, who fires Minny saying she is a thief, and who is the character we all love to hate. Hilly perhaps is the only stereotypical character in the book - but it is a minor flaw for the other characters are just wonderfully sketched.

Stockett's book is the book of the year. Read this even if you don't read another book the rest of the year. Suspense, intrigue, drama, laughter, sadness, and hope. What more do you want from a book? And there is hope for all aspiring writers waiting to be published - Stockett says she got 45 rejection letters - that is 5 years of rejections - before a publisher picked it up. Wow. Wonder how those 45 agents would be feeling now that this book has proven to be such a phenomenal bestseller?

And the author's favorite line from the book is also mine :

"Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought."

And this for personal reasons relating to my own state of mind is also a favorite:

"I always thought insanity would be a dark, bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious if you really roll around in it."

Verdict: Unputdownable. The book of the year. 


Rating : 6/5