The Help
By Kathryn Stockett
($24.95, Amy Einhorn Books/Penguin)


In 1962 Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan returns home from college to Jackson, Mississippi, eager to be a writer. She is advised to prepare for this career by writing about what disturbs her, but to take any writing job she can get in the meantime. The position she is offered requires that she write a housekeeping column, answering readers' questions. For a privileged white lady in Jackson, her only option is to solicit the help of one of her friends' maids.

Kathryn Stockett's first novel is so comfortable and well written that the reader slides into the vernacular of the Deep South and begins to understand what it's like to live there during that time, which is also the beginning of the civil rights era. The story is told by Skeeter and by three "colored" maids working in very different households. These are women who are trusted to take full care of the white household's children, but not of their silverware. The aspiring writer, who also writes the newsletter for her society friends, soon finds her topic of what really disturbs her and works to gain the trust of the maids and gather their stories for a book.

Ms. Stockett has written a remarkable first novel that is full of heart and humor and history. If you're near my age and lived in the Pacific Northwest, you'll pull out your old high school album and ask "Where the hell was I when this was going on?" If you aren't, you'll simply enjoy a well-written book with a good storyline.



Mary Burns is the owner of The BookWORKS, located at 1510 Third Street, downtown Marysville, 360.659.4997, or online at www.marysvillebookworks.com. Comments or requests are welcome at [email protected].