Absolutely stunning book which focuses on three women in 1962 as the Deep South is convulsed by the Civil Rights Movement. Skeeter has just graduated from Ole Miss. She has a degree and dreams of being a writer, but the conventions of the time decree it more important she land a man. The woman she usually confides in, the black maid who raised her, has disappeared. Aibileen, just such a black maid, is raising yet another white child. She’s devoted to the child but broken by the death of her own son who died while his white bosses looked the other way. Aibileen’s best friend, Minnie, also a black maid who can cook like nobody’s business, has lost her job due to her sassy tongue. She manages to find employment with a woman new to town who is kind but has painful secrets. The three come together for a clandestine project that will put them all, and those they love, at great risk. Why? Because they are suffocating under the social and cultural strictures of the time.
Vivian Copeland's Best Books Of All Time 