The Help

After two weeks I finally finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It took me a while to get in to it and even then, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Reading all those rave reviews, made my expectations pretty high but in the end The Help was just your garden variety human interest story.

Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Aibileen and Minny are two black women working as cooks and caretakers in white households. Enter Miss Skeeter, a white girl back from collage who wonders where her beloved maid Constantine went. During her quest to find out the truth, she delves into the lives of Constantine’s friends, the maids of Jackson, and decides to write a book about them so she can honor the woman who raised her.

The result is sentimental, predictable and so politically correct that it really annoyed me. Ok, it’s the USA, it’s the South and it’s 1962, racism was a part of life and it probably still is back there. It’s a common fact. Lots of rich white families depended on their domestic help for everything and would be literally helpless without them, which is another common fact that it frequently forgotten so yes, these men and women naturally deserve credit but Stockett’s novel is just another feeble attempt at fictional awareness, something to soothe the masses and middle-class moms.

What really bothered me wasn’t the fact that it’s moralizing and contrived but that so many people loved it or should I say, are supposed to love it because it reminds us of important (historic) issues that are smothered with “humanity”. Stockett, who is herself white, does her best to portray the thoughts and typically “black” vernacular of these women but sadly, her efforts lack any conviction and leave me with a rather artificial and predominantly American aftertaste. The Help is patronizing and predictable, the perfect fodder for people who love sentimental, simple and PC BS.