Hi Everyone,
It took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out how to use this site, so I’m a bit behind on the whole introduction thing. I’ll just leap right in.
My first book of the year is The Help by Katherine Stockett. I was skeptical, because I heard the book praised by entertainment media and fools on the street, and my snobbish thought is always, “most people are idiots; if everyone likes something, it can’t be good.” I forced my mind open with a crowbar enough to be enchanted by the premise and the cover design, and I’m glad I did.
I hugely enjoyed reading this book. Last year I re-read Gone With the Wind and To Kill A Mockingbird, read a biography of Flannery O’Connor and re-read much of her work, then discovered a new favorite in Pete Dexter’s Paris Trout (which I think should replace or at least join TKAM in the canon). The Help manages to add yet another fresh set of perspectives on race relations in the post-post-post Civil War south. While its topic is often overexposed, incendiary or rendered with trite emotion, The Help tackles one of the most paradoxical aspects of the relationship between whites and blacks just as the Civil Rights movement was heating up. Its other primary theme is the true definition of motherhood – forged more from sacrificial love than just biology. I especially suggest this for fans of Faulkner, O’Connor and other Southern lit. Not at all in the same class, but the writing is strong and Stockett very capably handles the narrative from three different viewpoints. I also enjoyed that one of the main characters is an aspiring writer facing a sea of social expectations for her post-college life and trying to find herself and her own goals in the midst of it – ring familiar, anyone? Heh heh.
I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed this! My Mom loaned it to me insisting that I read it. I’m looking forward to it now.
I keep walking past this in the bookstore, I will have to take a second look.