The plot of this amazing tale is simple and straightforward: 3 women come together, 1 white and 2 black to collaborate on a book depicting the experiences of black women serving white women. Straightforward, right? But set it during the backdrop of the 1960's sad, segregated Deep South with its Jim Crow laws, the murder of Medgar Evers and the civil rights movement and you've got a lit match on top of a powder keg of dynamite.But it is her characterization that makes the book shine. The story is about 3 very different women, Aibileen, the noble black maid raising white babies, the sassy Minnie whose mouth loses her one job after another and Skeeter the cotton trust fund college girl who starts to question the boundaries and prevailing attitudes of the day. It's a beautiful tale of how strength and a voice can come from the most unlikely of places. I am reminded of a passage from Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country: "Then she sat down at his table, and put her head on it, and was silent, with the patient suffering of black women, with the suffering of oxen, with the suffering of any that are mute."
It's the type of book that makes you resent the things you have to do: go to work, cook, clean, etc., when you know that this book waits for you, needing to be read.
Run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore and pick up this new 'classic.'
5/5
Well said Michele, I still live with these people in my head. I couldn't read a book for weeks afterward finishing this, nothing could come anywhere close.
ReplyDeleteIt still hasn't tbh. Good post. x