The American Civil rights movement is a rich seam in literature and it's latest incarnation `The Help` first came to my attention as a novel a couple of years ago. Set in Jackson, Mississippi the main character Skeeter is a young aspiring writer, who, after leaving college returns home to find her peers to be married young mothers, whose homes are run by 'The Help', black women who cook and clean for their white, middle class employers. Although she was raised under the same system, upon return, Skeeter looks upon this arrangement with fresh eyes, particularly noticing the way in which the black women are the main carers for the children. Skeeter decides to secretly write a magazine article using the stories of the her friends' maids though, in the violent climate of the Southern states in the 1960's she underestimates the risk that the women are taking..
Kathryn Stockett was herself raised by 'The Help` in lieu of an absent mother and it is her authentic voice which makes the story work. I would not want you to be under the illusion that this book is earnest or heavy, in fact, the moments of comedy are as powerful as the moments of high drama and tragedy. The characters, setting and relationships are vivid and live so powerfully on the page that it is easy for the reader to slip into the story and feel as though you are part of it. The recent film adaptation is of equally high quality, though obviously cannot encompass all of the plot twists and turns that a novel can.
I am sure that like me, you look back to such times and congratulate yourself that you live in a more enlightened era, that you could not be swept along on a tide of institutionalised inequality, that if such injustice were happening you would have the courage to speak up. Times such as these when we do not recognise injustice are the most dangerous of all, when it creeps into the fabric of our nation, when we think it is a thing of the past. How will future historians, novelists and film makers portray the times we now live in?
