A poignant look into the lives of African-American maids of the South at the onset of the Civil Rights Movement. The book is an excellent choice for book club because it explores a world that’s just past, but still close enough to have an understanding about from our parents and are older siblings.
The author lets the story unfold without lecturing and without judgment, so you can read it and take from it what you will. And there is so much to take from it especially the hypocrisy.
The story is told through Eugenia Skeeter Phelan (“Skeeter”), who starts to see the injustice around her and talks the maids into telling their stories for a novel. Skeeter loses almost everything from her endeavors, but morphs through to a new understanding of how the world will be. She is at ease with the coming of change. Her friends fight with all their might to continue the status quo, life the way it always has been.
The maids’ characters garner our sympathy and our respect. Their struggle is a heavy one, but handled with dignity and honesty. Some of the book’s characters are loathsome by the last chapters, but you can feel their anxiety as society starts to change around them, no matter how hard they fight to stop it.
Book clubs will enjoy the book and have lots of things to discuss, including hypocrisy, civil rights movement, equality, the South, and the book’s characters.
Rating: 8.0