The first book I down loaded was Dear John as I like Nicolis Sparks. It was so boring. Nothing ever happened. Then I bought "The Help" by Kathryn Stockinette and totally loved it. It is set in Mississippi in the sixties. That doesn not seem that long ago so it is hard to imagine that things were so bad just that many years ago. We have came a long ways. The writter was raised in a typical gentile white family with the mandatory colored maid. Except she wanted to be a writer,which her family just could not imagine. She worked constantly with notes, journals and a small local newspaper. She kept trying to get the right idea for a publisher in New York to show some interest. Finally she hits on the idea of interviewing the colored maids to see what it felt like to be one for all the white familys. Each one seemed to fall in love with the babies, and then of course would have to leave them. They were all very nervous about talking to her because they knew there would be repercussions, They were worried constantly about being fired and it was their lively hood. Kathryn did such a wonderful job of characterization that you feel you know each of these maids personally.(Made me feel I wished I could hire one.) In any event Kathrryn could not write the book while living in Mississippi. She eventually gets a job in New York and writes the book there. She claims it is fiction but still factual in most aspects. She refers to Martin Luther King and Megar Ever's murders as well as President Kennedy's association so it really takes the reader back to those days.
It reminded me of Trevor when he first went to school back in Illinois and they were talking about Martin Luther King. He immediately called me to see if I knew about that.When I said I did, he said, "Well, did you know how bad it was?" I told him I did and I felt a strong implication from him that if I did why didn't I fix it.
At any rate I highly recomend this book. If you haven't read it alread, rush to the library.She is so easy to read and the story flows seamlessly. That is the only bad thing about the Kindle you can't pass your good books along. I am VERY grateful for it though,
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Sounds like that is a book I would really like a lot. Got to remember the name and look for it in the library. You gave a good description of it. Working for my board and room in high school caused me to really relate to the maid or the hired girl as we referred to it in Utah. Leah Coleman was our hired girl. Ruby Ormond was our baby sitter. I sure appreciated their skills and the fact that they did work I wouldn't have to do. Our lives on the ranch were very impacted by the hired men, as a ranch could not be run without hired help.
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