Neither here nor there

I just finished The Help and it occurs to me that it is a book about being in between. It is a story about the relationship between white women and their servants in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s. It follows the lives of three women who are struggling, trying to find their place in a world that is dangerous, changing, and cruel with just enough hope in it to be crushing if things go badly.

Skeeter is a young, white woman caught in between her old social circle and an awakening social conscience. Her friends and family all have servants, particularly black women, working in their houses and raising their children. These same servants are being subjected to Jim Crow laws and everyday cruelties based on the desire to hang on to some pre-Civil War status. Aibileen is a black woman who is stuck between being a mother to a promising young man who died on the job and being a mother figure to the children of her weak and thoughtless employer.

And then there's Minny. Minny is pulled in just about as many ways as a woman can be pulled. She has children she's trying to educate and a husband who beats her up. She has the ability to be a fabulous cook and house-keeper and the inability to keep her comments to herself in dangerous situations. She is powerful and vulnerable. She is a fabulous character and I wish I had written her.

All this tension in the characters' lives really made me worried. I was constantly concerned for the physical, emotional, and mental safety of these women. I am so glad that the author, Kathryn Stockett, did not have everything end up rosy in the world of these women. There are definitely elements in this plot that could have been tied up nicely, but weren't, clearly because that's not the way life goes.

It is a real kick in the pants that this is Kathryn Stockett's first novel...I'm going to have to find out how long she worked on this one...because her handling of those plot elements and particularly of the voices of the main characters is really great. I questioned how accurate she could be in depicting the lives of black women in the sixties. Turns out she was raised by a woman much like the characters in this story. I think that makes the author's intent for writing this book rather clear.

I guess all the book clubs got this one right - I will miss this book and the women in it. I might just keep it on my nightstand a little longer, hoping to find out what happens to Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny.



BTW - I re-read my previous entry the other day. I griped on and on about a woman who started a blog in the hopes of having a meaningful project. The irony is not lost on me - a woman who started a blog to have a meaningful project. I don't care if we do have that in common...I still don't like Julie Powell. I think it just means I'll stop reading my previous entries!