Book of the Film....The Help

I'm never very good at watching films that have been adapted from books as there is always the possibility that the film won't meet the exacting standards of your imagination, but some films manage that crossover very successfully.
I'm thinking Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight Series are examples of good adaptations.

The recent film from book adaptation which seems to have caught the public's imagination is:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. 

Abileen is currently raising her seventeenth white child, and yet mourns for her lost son 

Minny is a strong and determined character who refuses to be intimidated by the white women who seek to master her, and yet she puts up with a violent and abusive husband

Miss Skeeter Phelan, budding journalist is newly graduated from the Univeristy of Mississippi, and yet when she asks her mother about the whereabouts of her maid, Constantine, no one will tell her what happened

This remarkable book looks at the social structure of America in the early 1960's, and is told through a series of vignettes by the black maids who look after the houses, homes and children of the upper class white citizens of Jackson, Mississippi.
When budding white journalist, Miss Skeeter Phelan attempts to write a book in order to uncover the moral apathy surrounding the lives of the black women who work so hard and who are disregarded, she is ostracised by her own people, and yet she feels it is her duty to enlighten and inform about the plight of the black "help".

As Miss Skeeter crosses the boundary between colour, class and creed, she realises that her life will never be the same again.


I read this book last year as part of a book group read and it provoked lively discussion.

The book is well worth reading before you see the film version...