Blythe's Book 31: The Help

I think I'll refrain from posting a picture, since there's already one of the cover in a previous post. I'll also refrain from giving a recap of the novel, since that too has been done. However, I do want to comment on how much I liked The Help. As someone who was raised in the technical South, the Deep South is still something of a mystery to me; especially the Deep South of the 1940s and '50s. This novel brought to light the many contradictions of the peculiar relationships between white women and their black hired help. How do you allow someone to raise your children from birth to adulthood, but still maintain that they are too ignorant, coarse and different to be considered your equal? How do you trust someone with your family and your secrets, but not with your silver? How do you live side by side with someone for twelve hours a day, but refuse to share a bathroom? Even stranger is the relationship between black hired women and the white children they've raised: children who go from one day adoring this woman as a second mother, to the next treating them with condescension and blatant discrimination. It was a weird, weird world, but one that was definitely interesting to read about and consider.