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Kathryn Stockett

The Help Paperback – April 5, 2011

by Kathryn Stockett (Author)

4.7 32,862 ratings

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The #1 New York Times bestselling novel and basis for the Academy Award-winning film—a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t—nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who’s always taken orders quietly, but lately she’s unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She’s full of ambition, but without a husband, she’s considered a failure.

Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town...

Print length

544 pages
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English
Publisher

Berkley
Publication date

April 5, 2011
Dimensions

5.07 x 1.18 x 8.26 inches
ISBN-10

0425232204
ISBN-13

978-0425232200
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Popular Highlights in this book

What are popular highlights?

Cause that’s the way prayer do. It’s like electricity, it keeps things going.
Highlighted by 5,376 Kindle readers
“All I’m saying is, kindness don’t have no boundaries.”
Highlighted by 3,041 Kindle readers
“They say it’s like true love, good help. You only get one in a lifetime.”
Highlighted by 2,891 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Help

“The two principal maid characters...leap off the page in all their warm, three dimensional glory...[A] winning novel.”—The New York Times

“This could be one of the most important pieces of fiction since To Kill a Mockingbird…If you read only one book...let this be it.”—NPR.org

“Wise, poignant...You’ll catch yourself cheering out loud.”—People

“Graceful and real, a compulsively readable story.”—Entertainment Weekly

“A beautiful portrait of a fragmenting world.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“The must-read choice of every book club in the country.”—The Huffington Post

“At turns hilarious and heart-warming.”—Associated Press

“In a page-turner that brings new resonance to the moral issues involved, Stockett spins a story of a social awakening as seen from both sides of the American racial divide.”—The Washington Post

About the Author

Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and creative writing, she moved to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for sixteen years. She currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Two days later, I sit in my parent's kitchen, waiting for dusk to fall. Igive in and light another cigarette even though last night the surgeongeneral came on the television set and shook his finger at everybody,trying to convince us that smoking will kill us. But Mother once toldme tongue kissing would turn me blind and I'm starting to think it'sall just a big plot between the surgeon general and Mother to make sureno one ever has any fun.

At eight o'clock that same night, I'mstumbling down Aibileen's street as discreetly as one can carrying afifty-pound Corona typewriter. I knock softly, already dying foranother cigarette to calm my nerves. Aibileen answers and I slipinside. She's wearing the same green dress and stiff black shoes aslast time.

I try to smile, like I'm confident it will workthis time, despite the idea she explained over the phone. "Could we…;sit in the kitchen this time?" I ask. "Would you mind?"

"Alright. Ain't nothing to look at, but come on back."

The kitchen is about half the size of the living room and warmer. It smellslike tea and lemons. The black-and-white linoleum floor has beenscrubbed thin. There's just enough counter for the china tea set. I setthe typewriter on a scratched red table under the window. Aibileenstarts to pour the hot water into the teapot.

"Oh, nonefor me, thanks," I say and reach in my bag. "I brought us some Co-Colasif you want one." I've tried to come up with ways to make Aibileen morecomfortable. Number One: Don't make Aibileen feel like she has to serveme.

"Well, ain't that nice. I usually don't take my tea tilllater anyway." She brings over an opener and two glasses. I drink minestraight from the bottle and seeing this, she pushes the glasses aside,does the same.

I called Aibileen after Elizabeth gave me thenote, and listened hopefully as Aibileen told me her idea—for her towrite her own words down and then show me what she's written. I triedto act excited. But I know I'll have to rewrite everything she'swritten, wasting even more time. I thought it might make it easier ifshe could see it in type-face instead of me reading it and telling herit can't work this way.

We smile at each other. I take a sip of my Coke, smooth my blouse. "So…;" I say.

Aibileen has a wire-ringed notebook in front of her. "Want me to…;just go head and read?"

"Sure," I say.

We both take deep breaths and she begins reading in a slow, steady voice.

"Myfirst white baby to ever look after was named Alton Carrington Speers.It was 1924 and I'd just turned fifteen years old. Alton was a long,skinny baby with hair fine as silk on a corn…;"

I begin typing as she reads, her words rhythmic, pronounced more clearly thanher usual talk. "Every window in that filthy house was painted shut onthe inside, even though the house was big with a wide green lawn. Iknew the air was bad, felt sick myself…;"

"Hang on," I say. I've typed wide greem. I blow on the typing fluid, retype it. "Okay, go ahead."

"When the mama died, six months later," she reads, "of the lung disease, theykept me on to raise Alton until they moved away to Memphis. I lovedthat baby and he loved me and that's when I knew I was good at makingchildren feel proud of themselves…;"

I hadn't wanted toinsult Aibileen when she told me her idea. I tried to urge her out ofit, over the phone. "Writing isn't that easy. And you wouldn't havetime for this anyway, Aibileen, not with a full-time job."

"Can't be much different than writing my prayers every night."

It was the first interesting thing she'd told me about herself since we'dstarted the project, so I'd grabbed the shopping pad in the pantry."You don't say your prayers, then?"

"I never told nobody that before. Not even Minny. Find I can get my point across a lot better writing em down."

"Sothis is what you do on the weekends?" I asked. "In your spare time?" Iliked the idea of capturing her life outside of work, when she wasn'tunder the eye of Elizabeth Leefolt.

"Oh no, I write a hour, sometimes two ever day. Lot a ailing, sick peoples in this town."

I was impressed. That was more than I wrote on some days. I told her we'd try it just to get the project going again.

Aibileen takes a breath, a swallow of Coke, and reads on.

Shebacktracks to her first job at thirteen, cleaning the Francis the Firstsilver service at the governor's mansion. She reads how on her firstmorning, she made a mistake on the chart where you filled in the numberof pieces so they'd know you hadn't stolen anything.

"I comehome that morning, after I been fired, and stood outside my house withmy new work shoes on. The shoes my mama paid a month's worth a lightbill for. I guess that's when I understood what shame was and the colorof it too. Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was.Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all nightto pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it."

Aibileenlooks up to see what I think. I stop typing. I'd expected the storiesto be sweet, glossy. I realize I might be getting more than I'dbargained for. She reads on.

"…;so I go on and get thechiffarobe straightened out and before I know it, that little white boydone cut his fingers clean off in that window fan I asked her to takeout ten times. I never seen that much red come out a person and I grabthe boy, I grab them four fingers. Tote him to the colored hospitalcause I didn't know where the white one was. But when I got there, acolored man stop me and say, Is this boy white?" The typewriterkeys are clacking like hail on a roof. Aibileen is reading faster and Iam ignoring my mistakes, stopping her only to put in another page.Every eight seconds, I fling the carriage aside.

"And I says Yessuh, and he say, Is them his white fingers? And I say, Yessuh, and he say, Well you better tell them he your high yellow cause that colored doctor won't operate on a white boy in a Negro hospital. And then a white policemangrab me and he say, Now you look a here—"

She stops. Looks up. The clacking ceases.

"What? The policeman said look a here what?"

"Well, that's all I put down. Had to catch the bus for work this morning."

I hit the return and the typewriter dings. Aibileen and I look each other straight in the eye. I think this might actually work.

Chapter 12

Everyother night for the next two weeks, I tell Mother I'm off to feed thehungry at the Canton Presbyterian Church, where we, fortunately, knownot a soul. Of course she'd rather I go down to the First Presbyterian,but Mother's not one to argue with Christian works and she nodsapprovingly, tells me on the side to make sure I wash my handsthoroughly with soap afterward.

Hour after hour, inAibileen's kitchen, she reads her writing and I type, the detailsthickening, the babies' faces sliding into focus. At first, I'mdisappointed that Aibileen is doing most of the writing, with me justediting. But if Missus Stein likes it, I'll be writing the other maids'stories and that will be more than enough work. If she likes it…; I find myself saying this over and over in my head, hoping it might make it so.

Aibileen's writing is clear, honest. I tell her so.

"Well, look who I been writing to." She chuckles. "Can't lie to God."

BeforeI was born, she actually picked cotton for a week at Longleaf, my ownfamily's farm. Once she lapses into talking about Constantine withoutmy even asking.

"Law, that Constantine could sing. Like apurebred angel standing in the front a the church. Give everbodychills, listening to that silky voice a hers and when she wouldn't singno more after she had to give her baby to—" She stops. Looks at me.

She says, "Anyway."

Itell myself not to press her. I wish I could hear everything she knowsabout Constantine, but I'll wait until we've finished her interviews. Idon't want to put anything between us now.

"Any word fromMinny yet?" I ask. "If Missus Stein likes it," I say, practicallychanting the familiar words, "I just want to have the next interviewset up and ready."

Aibileen shakes her head. "I asked Minny three times and she still say she ain't gone do it. I spec it's time I believed her."

Itry not to show my worry. "Maybe you could ask some others? See ifthey're interested?" I am positive that Aibileen would have better luckconvincing someone than I would.

Aibileen nods. "I got some more I can ask. But how long you think it's gone take for this lady to tell you if she like it?"

I shrug. "I don't know. If we mail it next week, maybe we'll hear fromher by mid-February. But I can't say for sure." Aibileen presses herlips together, looks down at her pages. I see something that I haven'tnoticed before. Anticipation, a glint of excitement. I've been sowrapped up in my own self, it hasn't occurred to me that Aibileen mightbe as thrilled as I am that an editor in New York is going to read herstory. I smile and take a deep breath, my hope growing stronger.

On our fifth session, Aibileen reads to me about the day Treelore died.She reads about how his broken body was thrown on the back of a pickupby the white foreman. "And then they dropped him off at the coloredhospital. That's what the nurse told me, who was standing outside. Theyrolled him off the truck bed and the white men drove away." Aibileendoesn't cry, just lets a parcel of time pass while I stare at thetypewriter, she at the worn black tiles.

On the sixth session,Aibileen says, "I went to work for Miss Leefolt in 1960. When MaeMobley two weeks old," and I feel I've passed through a leaden gate ofconfidence. She describes the building of the garage bathroom, admitsshe is glad it is there now. It's easier than listening to Hillycomplain about sharing a toilet with the maid. She tells me that I oncecommented that colored people attend too much church. That stuck withher. I cringe, wondering what else I've said, never suspecting the helpwas listening or cared.

One night she says, "I was thinking…;" But then she stops.

I look up from the typewriter, wait. It took Aibileen vomiting on herself for me to learn to let her take her time.

"I's thinking I ought to do some reading. Might help me with my own writing."

"Go down to the State Street Library. They have a whole room full of Southern writers. Faulkner, Eudora Welty—"

Aibileen gives me a dry cough. "You know colored folks ain't allowed in that library."

Isit there a second, feeling stupid. "I can't believe I forgot that."The colored library must be pretty bad. There was a sit-in at thewhite library a few years ago and it made the papers. When the coloredcrowd showed up for the sit-in trial, the police department simplystepped back and turned the German shepherds loose. I look at Aibileenand am reminded, once again, the risk she's taking talking to me. "I'llbe glad to pick the books up for you," I say.

Aibileen hurries to the bedroom and comes back with a list. "I better mark theones I want first. I been on the waiting list for To Kill a Mockingbird at the Carver Library near bout three months now. Less see…;"

I watch as she puts checkmarks next to the books: The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois, poems by Emily Dickinson (any), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

"I read some a that back in school, but I didn't get to finish." She keeps marking, stopping to think which one she wants next.

"You want a book by…;Sigmund Freud?"

"Oh,people crazy." She nods. "I love reading about how the head work. Youever dream you fall in a lake? He say you dreaming about your own selfbeing born. Miss Frances, who I work for in 1957, she had all thembooks."

On her twelfth title, I have to know. "Aibileen, howlong have you been wanting to ask me this? If I'd check these books outfor you?"

"A while." She shrugs. "I guess I's afraid to mention it."

"Did you…;think I'd say no?"

"These is white rules. I don't know which ones you following and which ones you ain't."

We look at each other a second. "I'm tired of the rules," I say.

Aibileen chuckles and looks out the window. I realize how thin this revelation must sound to her.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Berkley; Reprint edition (April 5, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 544 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0425232204
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0425232200
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.07 x 1.18 x 8.26 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #13 in Black & African American Historical Fiction (Books)
- #45 in Small Town & Rural Fiction (Books)
- #454 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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Kathryn Stockett

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Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. The Help is her first novel.

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SerenityFL

Fantastic!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 10, 2009

Verified Purchase

For her first novel, this author did an amazing job. I love to read but it is rare that a book affects me like this. This was one of those books that I thought about all day at work and couldn't wait to get home to continue reading. It's been a long, long time since I've had a book like that.

I enjoyed the first person story telling of each chapter as it went from Minny to Abileen to Skeeter and back. I think this was the absolute best way to write this book. It was brilliant, frankly and I don't think the book would have flowed quite so well if it had been written from only one person's perspective.

This book brought out all sorts of emotions in me. I got angry, (Hilly...grrr!!), I was disgusted, I was happy, I felt respect and for some characters, deep respect, I laughed, (Minnie...oh, wonderful Minnie), I cried, I felt shame, I was scared, anxious, apprehensive...sigh. I've read a lot of books. Many books have made me emotional but I don't know any book that has made me feel these things consistently, throughout the book from the beginning all the way to the end.

This writer grabbed me right from the start and kept my interest to the very last word. Her characters were incredibly well developed and I cared for Skeeter, her mother, the Help and little Mae Mobely. I did not care for Hilly, Elizabeth and their ilk but this writer made me feel intensely about them. I really wanted to smack Hilly right in the mouth. Many times. I even started to care a little bit about that ditz, Miss Celia.

But mostly, I cared about the help. I adored Minnie. I love that woman! She may have had a thick wall of defense around her but inside she was soft. She tried not to care, many times but she did care. Not that she would admit it, maybe not even to herself. I loved how she would bite her tongue, bite her tongue, bite her tongue and STILL something would come out. I totally understand. It does get one in to trouble a lot but for some of us, the candor we cannot control, no matter how hard we try. And the pie? Oh how I laughed! Gutsy, strong willed, beautiful woman.

And Abileen, with her warm, giving heart. Her constant prayers. Her willingness to be the first to work with Skeeter on the book. All the praises she gave Minnie, she failed to realize, she should have given to herself because she was the one who stood up and said, "I'll do it" and convinced others to, as well.

Finally, Miss Skeeter: Young and naive. Eventually though, she stopped being a toy for Miss Holbrook and started thinking for herself. She started the writing for one reason but as she went along, learned a great deal about her life and the life of those around her. She grew stronger with each passing month even as she lost all of her friends and her boyfriend. While those who were "The Help" had much more to lose, Skeeter was also brave. As she grew, so did my respect for her.

This book is about brave women who stood up against those who said such nasty things as, "you can get many diseases" from a black person. Who had their tongues cut out for speaking out. Who were mistreated in so many ways. Who were not looked upon as humans but rather as disposable. They were scared but they did it anyway.

I tried to put myself in the shoes of those maids. Empathize with what it would be like to have someone view me that way in everything I did. I think we've all had a small, very small taste of what these women went through on a daily and constant basis. There is no way for us to ever fully understand it though.

And this is where I found the deep respect for them. It actually affected me in my own life. I found myself standing up for myself more at work. I also found myself brushing off things that I used to think were a big deal but now realize, I've had it really easy all this time.

I just can't say enough about this book or this author. I am truly impressed with the author and I found her "In Her Own Words", at the back of the book to be equally interesting.

It takes books as well written as this to get me to write a review. I want to sing this book's praises from the mountaintops. I don't typically do reviews because I feel I'm not very good at them but mostly because I'm just not moved enough to actually write something other than, "it was good" or "it was not good". I tend to stick to reviewing that which I truly enjoyed but even then it's going to be rare that I give 5 stars.

I give this book 5 stars. I would give it more if that option were available. And I will definitely buy books from this author again just as soon as they start getting published.

The only downside to this: After reading something so engaging, so wonderfully written, feeling all the emotions I felt, really caring about the characters, it's going to be a tough act to follow. The next book I read is going to have to be good in its own right or it won't stand a chance.

22 people found this helpful

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The Help

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 22, 2023

Verified Purchase

Love this book! The writer provides a great look into the value of relationships and common decency!

Helpful

Diana Faillace Von Behren

Nanny Diaries

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 11, 2011

Verified Purchase

Anyone who is a parent to grown or even teenage child knows the pain inflicted when that burgeoning adult disagrees, chastises or looks down upon this his/her first and ultimate authority figure. Imagine the anguish caused by the child who after automatically accepting his/her family black housekeeper as a first mother comes to be taught by society that this warm and caring woman's inferiority is such that she cannot even use the same toilet facility. A knife of sadness so deep pierces the hearts of these surrogate mothers when the unconditional love of a child becomes segregated behind the bigoted traditions of an unenlightened community.

Such is the emotional stuff of Kathyrn Stockett's novel "The Help," a tale of Jackson, Mississippi in the Civil Rights era of the early 60s told from the perspective of three members of its fractured social framework. The story pivots around the restless aspirations of Skeeter, a recent graduate from Ole Miss whose desire to be a scintillating Southern writer that would diminish even the glorious Faulkner and Welty is quickly extinguished by her mother's desire for her to settle down and marry before anyone worth knowing deems her a gawky spinster with untamable hair. When the family's longtime maid, Constantine leaves without saying goodbye to the girl she raised from a baby, Skeeter suddenly becomes aware that sadness can reach depths that can carve out a piece of her soul. Against the dark backdrop of sit-ins, freedom rides and Southern resistance, she begins to wonder how such circumstances wound the ever-smiling black servants without whom white households would not run and decides to focus her attention on crafting a book that will reveal the thoughts of these seemingly tireless yet resilient women.

She enlists the "help" of the strong and sensible Aibileen with a writer's aspiration of her own and the wildly outspoken Minny, whose big mouth and anger over unjust situations loses her more jobs than can be had in such a small city where propriety and reputation count for so much. Add to this mixture of historical events and the emotional experiences of the three women the activities of the local Junior League headed by the extremely dislikable Hilly Holbrook who has decided that the Jim Crow laws reflect her inner mantra prompting her civic duty to include ensuring the installment of separate bathroom facilities for any family employing black help.

Along with the well-developed empathy for all citizens infected by the rigidly defined pre-flower power milieu of the 60s, Stockett inoculates the reader with a jab of fun and madcap mayhem from the ominous virus of misfortune that could, at any time, overtake these women and their clandestine project and cast them into a tailspin of misery that could include beatings, imprisonment and death. Most entertaining is the interchange between the sassy Minny and her employer, the ditzy Marilyn Monroe stereotype, Ceclia Foote. Stockett revels in her ability to create poignant moments and goes out of her way to pull out all the stops, allowing her reader to breathe in the heavy Southern air, feel its stifling humidity and become familiar with the cozy flamboyance of each voice.

The author, hailing from Jackson, herself, brings a great deal of verisimilitude to her tale, so much so that this reviewer wonders what her fellow Jacksonians think about this expose as it most definitely is written as not only a time capsule but a tribute to the black woman who raised her and a finger-shaking at the ignorance of the governing community groups prevalent at that time that still may exist today. Surely, as such conditions were alive and well only a generation ago, the history of such systemic bigotry still extends somewhat and sadly into present sensibilities. In fact, a lawsuit currently exists between the author and her brother's 60-year-old maid/nanny who feels "humiliated" that Stockett used her as the model for the book's Aibileen claiming embarrassment at the character's use of patois and annoyance at the too many personal history similarities that seem more than just coincidental.

Nevertheless, nothing can detract from "The Help"'s obvious appeal. The individual voices of each of the main characters remain entertaining throughout while providing an interesting depiction of the interplay between whites and blacks in South during the Civil Rights period. Stockett's portrayal of Skeeter's relationship with her mother, her dealing with both her parents' expectations and her desire for freedom in individualistic expression remarkably exemplifies from the Southern vantage point the universal theme of a young woman yearning for more than just marriage and a home that buttressed the Women's Liberation Movement of the seventies.

Bottom line? "The Help" provides page-turning entertainment that showcases the interplay between white and black citizens of Jackson, Mississippi during the early 60s. Readers cannot fail to fall in love with the steadfast, loving Aibileen and the rebellious, outspoken Minny while despising the pompously ridiculous Hilly and her kowtowing minions. While the depiction of Skeeter's coming-of-age may, at times, seem a bit trite, it, nevertheless, rings true with episodes of disappointing dates, pathetic future in-laws and full-blown expectations so gilded with fairytale happy-ever-afters that the almost saccharine acceptance of this character by the black community applauding her work on the interviews seems fitting. Readers old and young will laugh and cry from the first page to the last, wishing that the story will go on well past the final paragraph. Highly Recommended.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"

9 people found this helpful

Helpful

Denise S.

Book report

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 14, 2023

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Very very funny

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Jordana Aguilar

L-O-V-I-N-G this book!

Reviewed in Mexico 🇲🇽 on March 28, 2023

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This is such a wonderful story, I haven’t finished it yet but it is one of those books you really don’t want to end. I am loving the characters, Minnie in particular has made me laugh out loud more than a few times! The story also has a lot of depth, one of those that stays in your heart.

Camila Mello

One of my favorites!

Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on August 5, 2019

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Assisti o filme primeiro e amei. Com o livro não foi diferente. Li em menos de uma semana.

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Carol

Great!

Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on June 30, 2020

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Really good book

VERONICA KATY SANTANA AREVALO

Great book

Reviewed in Mexico 🇲🇽 on January 19, 2020

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Great book!!! 100% recommended

Eloy Reinert Filho

Emocionante

Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on January 12, 2018

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Perfeito! Acabamento belíssimo com uma linda capa. É uma história emocionante, sobre coragem, amizade e esperança. Recomendo muito. Para ler - chorar - e reler diversas vezes.

One person found this helpful

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Kathryn Stockett

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