Introducing The Book

The Help takes place between the summers of 1962 and 1964 in Jackson, Mississippi. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement, the novel focuses on a reckoning on race and segregation in a far more intimate sphere than the national stage: the home. Alternating between the perspectives of two Black maids, Aibileen and Minny, and one white woman, Skeeter, who’s mourning the disappearance of her own maid, The Help shows how personal prejudices and racist government policies influence each other to the detriment of everyone.