Although she gets a publisher on board quickly, the maids-including Aibileen and Minny-are hesitant to speak to her, because a Black woman speaking out in the South in the early 1960s comes with life-threatening danger.Īibileen and Minny eventually agree to help Skeeter, but the other maids in the town are unwilling to help, fearing reprisals.

Skeeter has the idea to write a book of interviews to capture the perspective of Jackson’s maids.

Instead, she secretly approaches Aibileen and asks if she would like to help her change things in Jackson. When Hilly asks Skeeter to place an advertisement in the Junior League’s newsletter advocating for people to install a separate toilet for Black workers, Skeeter doesn’t respond. While trying to unravel Constantine’s disappearance, Skeeter starts to realize that the Black maids in Jackson are treated poorly. Constantine wrote to her in college telling her she has a surprise for her, but Skeeter’s mother now says Constantine quit and won’t give her any additional information. Skeeter is curious about the disappearance of the maid who essentially raised her, Constantine. However, her mother would prefer she settle down and get married. She recently graduated from the University of Mississippi, and she wants to become a writer. Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan is a young woman from a wealthy family that employs several African American workers on their cotton farm. Walters’s and starts working for a woman named Celia Foote. However, Minny is soon let go from her job at Mrs. Walters, the mother of the book’s villain Hilly Holbrook. Minny Jackson, Aibileen’s friend, is an outspoken woman who has been fired 19 times, and currently works for Mrs. Aibileen Clark is an older maid who is returning to work since her 24-year-old son Treelore died in a work accident, and she works for the Leefolt household caring for their toddler, Mae Mobley. The Help is told from a first-person perspective split among three women.

Book the help by kathryn stockett