Constantine had written to Skeeter while she was away from home in college saying what a great surprise she had awaiting her when she came home. Skeeter is curious about the disappearance of Constantine, her maid who brought her up and cared for her. Skeeter's mother wants her to get married and thinks her degree is just a pretty piece of paper. Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from the University of Mississippi and wants to become a writer.
Many of the field hands and household help are African Americans. Skeeter is the daughter of a wealthy white family who owns Longleaf, a cotton farm and formerly a plantation, outside Jackson. Minny is Aibileen's friend who frequently tells her employers what she thinks of them, resulting in her having been fired from nineteen jobs. In the story, she is tending the Leefolt household and caring for their toddler, Mae Mobley. Her own 24-year-old son, Treelore, died from an accident on his job. Aibileen is a maid who takes care of children and cleans. The Help is set in the early 1960s in Jackson, Mississippi, and told primarily from the first-person perspectives of three women: Aibileen Clark, Minny Jackson, and Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan. Spencer was Stockett's original inspiration for the character of Minny, and also plays her in the film adaptation. The Help's audiobook version is narrated by Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and Cassandra Campbell. As of August 2011, it had sold seven million copies in print and audiobook editions, and spent more than 100 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. The Help has since been published in 35 countries and three languages. It took her five years to complete and was rejected by 60 literary agents, over a period of three years, before agent Susan Ramer agreed to represent Stockett. Stockett began writing the novel - her first - after the September 11th attacks. The story is about African Americans working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi, during the early 1960s.Ī USA Today article called it one of the "summer sleeper hits." An early review in The New York Times notes Stockett's "affection and intimacy buried beneath even the most seemingly impersonal household connections," and says the book is a "button-pushing, soon to be wildly popular novel." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said of the book: "This heartbreaking story is a stunning début from a gifted talent." The Help is a historical fiction novel by American author Kathryn Stockett and published by Penguin Books in 2009.
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