Follett Titlewave
It’s 1962, and aspiring author, Skeeter Phelan, decides to write a book about the experiences of black maids working for white employers in Jackson, Mississippi.
As a well-to-do native of Jackson, Skeeter was lovingly raised by a black maid. Although she is sympathetic to the winds of social change, Skeeter finds it difficult to gain the trust of the maids who fear the potentially horrific backlash for their truth-telling.
Skeeter’s own social life is up-ended as she increasingly distances herself from people who treat blacks as inferior or who do not have the moral courage to care or help bring about change.
Told in the first person with alternating chapters for “Miss Skeeter” and two of the maids, Aibilene and Minny, the immediacy of the story draws the reader into the maids’ world as well as that of a white woman who witnesses things from both sides of the fence.
Although significant events such as the murder of Medgar Evers are interjected, the story mainly focuses on these hard-working women–the injustices they faced as well as the loving bonds forged with some of their employers’ family members.
The author, Kathryn Stockett, was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, and was sweetly nurtured by a black maid named Demetrie. Kathryn says, in her own words at the end of the book,
I’m pretty sure I can say that no one in my family ever asked Demetrie what it felt like to be black in Mississippi, working for our white family. . . . I have wished, for many years, that I’d been old enough and thoughtful enough to ask Demetrie that question. She died when I was sixteen. I’ve spent years imagining what her answer would be, and that is why I wrote this book.
This #1 New York Times bestseller let me “walk in another man’s moccasins.” I’m grateful for that.
I object to the prurient incident of a naked house intruder. In addition, although the considerable amount of swearing is probably authentic, I wish that my Lord’s name had not been taken in vain.
