It's Wednesday again, which means it is officially time to discuss The Help, Kathryn Stockett's debut novel. Holy smokes, people, I whipped through this delight in exactly 1.5 days...I just couldn't put it down! Confession: I am finding the whole one-book-a-week thing hard to do; the last few weeks I've actually been secretly reading another book or two between Sunday and Wednesday, just old favs rather than other new books. Hopefully when I am employed somewhere full-time the book-a-week thing will work out perfectly, though. Perhaps in an upcoming post, I'll spotlight some of those secret alterna-books-of-the-other-part-of-the-week-once-I-finish-the-actual-book-of-the-week-because-sometimes-I-just-need-to-know-RIGHT-NOW-what's-going-to-happen-next-books.
What made The Help so engrossing--to me at least--was the multifaceted harmony created by the three "ordinary women" whose voices entwined to paint a compelling portrait of life in 1960's Jackson, Mississippi. Aibileen, the story's heart, is a battle-weary black maid who has spent her life being a mother to white babies, and who lost her own son only a few years ago in a racially-sensitive incident. Her young friend, Minny, is also a housekeeper for white women, and absolutely brims with sass, which I love. The third voice is Skeeter, a young, rather naive white girl who has returned home after graduating college and decides to write a novel composed of the experiences of black maids serving white families--through this process, her eyes are opened to the complicated amalgam of intimacy and detachment, nurture and disgust, love and bitterness that exist in these relationships.
These three characters' potent and unique voices work to create a single overarching narrative, and secondary characters are similarly well handled by Stockett, adding to the story's richness. Through Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter's eyes, we see the strange opposites that live side-by-side not just in the segregated 60s, but in each of us. Characters continually surprise: a brassy black woman who doesn't take crap from anyone is physically abused by her husband, a drunk jerk turns out to be a suffering spurned lover, and a helpless country bumpkin ignores societal lines to stand up for her black employee. Over and over, Stockett reminds us of the paradoxes residing within each of us, thereby underscoring both the impossibility of anything being simply black and white as well as the futility of creating labels to divide "us" and "them." As Skeeter wisely observes towards the story's close, "We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought." Love!
While I could go on and on about this great read, I really don't want to be a spoiler, so just go out and pick up a copy if you haven't already. (It really is engrossing, with lots of spunk and meaning). For those of you who are already fans of the book, you might be excited to hear they are making a movie, being filmed in Mississippi and due to come out sometime in 2011. You can check here on IMDB to learn more about the movie and find out who has been cast to play each of the characters. Now, while I am not thrilled with all of their choices, I do absolutely love the idea of Allison Janney playing Skeeter's mom, and think that Bryce Dallas Howard as Hilly could be interesting, too. Who would you cast for some of The Help's main characters? I'm going to think on it and get back to you for my personal dream cast, but would love your input!
Okay, now it's time for a quick reminder: this week's book of the week is The World to Come, by Dara Horn. Magical and quirky and historical and bittersweet (all in the first 30 pages), so definitely worth the read; I can't wait to tell you more about it once I finish it next Wednesday (or let's be honest, I'll probably accidentally finish it Saturday and have to hold my bloggin-breath until Wednesday)!
Also, it's time to announce next week's book, too, in case you want to get a head start on the reading. I've picked The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. Why did I pick it, you might ask? For several reasons, including:
1. It was winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2007
2. In one of my favorite English classes at UVA, I read Drown, a collection of sharp, vibrant, and sometimes quite raw short stories that was Diaz's debut work; I remember feeling like he was one of those authors who had a true voice, completely gritty, singular, funny, and worth revisiting.
3. The Brief Wondrous Life is Diaz's first novel and tells the tale of a "ghetto nerd" from NJ who want to be the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. Oh, and fall in love, too. Interesting, no?
4. I felt like it was time to juxtapose the tone of The Help and The World to Come, and think Diaz will fit the bill. As A.O. Scott wrote in his NYT review: "Diaz's novel has a wild, capricious spirit, making it feel much larger than it is...Holding all this together--just barely, but in the end effectively--is a voice that is profane, lyrical, learned and tiredless, a riot of accents and idioms coexisting..."
I hope you'll join me in both of the upcoming books of the week!
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