I think some of you have already read this, unless I'm mistaken?
Anyway,
The Help by Kathryn Stockett, is set in 1963 (I think - I had to return it to the library, so I can't check) in Mississippi, and is narrated by two black women who are 'the help' in white households, and a white woman who begins collecting the tales of the black servant women as she tries to find out what happened to her own black nanny.
I cannot say how I loved this book. I loved it so much I made my mum get herself the German translation of it for her holiday reading when I saw it was available. I loved it so much I kept reading it till 2 a.m., unable to put it down, just needing to know what happened next, and then directly continued reading the next day.
I cannot of course judge how authentic everything was, because I didn't know much about Mississippi in the '60s before, but it did ring quite true to me. Some things quite shocked me, the way that casual racism in every tiny detail of every-day life was revealed, and how different characters thought about it - it makes you hope fervently that people have changed in the last fifty years.
Quite apart from the presentation of The Issue I found the narration itself very well done. Each of the three narrating characters had her own unique voice, her own woes and her own plot-lines that never seemed too far-fetched or unrealistic.
Hm, I don't know what else I can say apart from 'Go, read it!' - it's definitely in the run for my Best Read of the Year.
Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?
