Originally Posted by Mellowicious
I read The Help and while I found it very readable, I could never get past the believability gap. I am from Up Here instead of Down There and I may be completely wrong - but I just couldn't believe that in a town that bitterly hung up, that even one, let alone more than one, of the maids would have talked to a well-enough-off white girl, particularly given the things her mother was capable of. I have not worked in service but I know about apples not falling far from trees. If I would not have trusted her, why would the maids, who had so much to lose?

I was also not terribly comfortable with the idea that, of all the women in pain in this book, it had to be the White Girl Heroine that led the Poor Black Women to some semblance of freedom.

However - I am not from there, as I said, and that was just my take.

The story felt off to me, false somehow. But I'll take your word on the writing.

But I *will* tell you about a series I stumbled across while looking for reviews of The Help - it's a four-book detective series about Blanche White, a domestic worker who is raising her sister's two children. These are not smash'em crash'em detective stories, but they have a great deal of character development and they taught me some things.

The author is Barbara Neely, and the books are Blanche Cleans Up, Blanche on the Lam, Blanche Passes Go, and Blanche among the Talented Tenth. (and I'm sure that's not the right order, if order really matters.)

What hooks The Help and Barbara Neely together? Nothing, except at the end of The Help, I was tired of reading what white women thought black women felt - particularly about a time and place when the division between them was so great.

Oh - here's the column about the one that led me to the other...

Good points.

Related: I had an argument with my playwright friend, Jeff Sweet, along somewhat related lines. He'd written a play about a black woman (Southern) who demands more from her position as a nurse in WWII. He has her outwardly defiant, complete with shoulder moves, even when she is being court marshalled. At no level does she show fear. I questioned him about it based on reading and my southern experience. His theory was that risk-takers show up everywhere at any time. To me, the play still didn't ring true. I believe the character would have been better if fear was there and she acted in spite of it. But he was the writer, the play is based on a true story, and it has had a few well-received productions. And how does that relate to The Help? Moving in your direction, all the maids woulld have been better character if they had taken matters in their own hands. But at that time, in a relatively small MS town, would they have known what to do with the material if they had had the ideas themselves? No idea, but I see your concerns. It's a lot like Pepper Anderson (Policewoman) and the Charlie's Angels detectives always being saved by someone male. But they became only the lead-ins to Cagney and Lacey about female detectives who could and did take care of hemselves. Interesting.

Would they trust Skeeter? I guess I was willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of the story.

More tomorrow. My night put-me-to-bed lady just showed.

Currently reading: Best American Mystery Stories edited by Lee Child and Otto Penzler. AARGH!