Young Professionals Book Club: The Help

This month the Young Professionals Book Club is going in a slightly different direction, as we read and discuss this new, bestselling, and highly acclaimed novel by Kathryn Stockett. Please join us for what is sure to be a passionate and fascinating conversation about race, class, and social constructions in the South.

Summary: Set in Stockett's native Jackson, MS, in the early 1960s, this first novel adopts the complicated theme of blacks and whites living in a segregated South. A century after the Emancipation Proclamation, black maids raised white children and ran households but were paid poorly, often had to use separate toilets from the family, and watched the children they cared for commit bigotry. In Stockett's narrative, Miss Skeeter, a young white woman, is a naive, aspiring writer who wants to create a series of interviews with local black maids. Even if they're published anonymously, the risk is great; still, Aibileen and Minny agree to participate. Tension pervades the novel as its events are told by these three memorable women.