Help / Kathryn Stockett 451 p.

Miss Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, recent graduate of Ole Miss returns to Jackson, Mississippi to her family's cotton plantation, Longleaf, continues in the southern tradition of working for the Junior League, playing bridge with other socialites, and dreams of a job in journalism.  She takes the only opening at the local paper, writing housekeeping hints, something she knows absolutely nothing about.  She turns to her friend who gives her access to the African-American maid, Aibileen, for answers.  Skeeter, Miss Skeeter to the maids, conceives of a book about the working conditions of the African American maids working for their white employers.  She, Aibileen, and Minny work on this project in deep secrecy as the very lives of the maids are at stake.  Set in 1962, the civil rights movement is coming, yet Jim Crow laws are still on the books.  Stockett sets the reader right into the controversy and the lives of the maids.