Best book since The Color Purple (Yeah! I said it)

Yeah...I said it. This is one of the best (and most important books) in women's fiction since Alice Walker's The Color Purple.   I don't even no where to begin when describing the gamut of emotions that I went through while reading this book.  All I can say is, that I am most pleasantly surprised and pleased with they way this book turned out. Based on reviews from other readers, I was expecting to be more offended by Stockett's words and descriptions than I was by the actual history itself.   Yes, I reacted strongly to the depictions of Southern life, the language, and the complete  disregard for human compassion...but i have reacted to this my whole life and to have felt anything else would have been a falsehood.

   What I liked most about this book, was the validity of the white female voice.  Oops! I said that too. Yes, a white woman  living in 1960's Mississippi had a voice.  Stockett giving voice to such a character has allowed myself and, no doubt, others to understand that history does not occur in a vacuum. Everyone was there and will be haunted by the same ghosts of generations past.  Found it quite tragic that Black and white women danced very delicately around each other, as if any normal interaction would upset the balance and change the world. And that is exactly what this era was about: upsetting the balance. Making it uncomfortable to continue to exist with the status quo. Though  the book was, at times, funny and other times sobering, I think this book was really the memoir of every woman in the South who had to become the equivalent of an FBI agent to do something right and good.

    Alice Walker coined the term womanist.  The womanist theme is found stamped all the way through The Color Purple: the struggle and triumph of every woman.  The Help is such a book as to pay homage to the Walker's work.  The Color Purple was about an awakening: "I'm here", Celie says, "I'm here".  That in no matter what situation I may find myself, I have made it through and I have arrived at this moment. In  The Help, Minnie once muses that she wonders at who she could be without Leroy. This is Minnie's I'm here moment.  Skeeter has one. Abeliene has one as well. This is why I compare the literary mastery of The Color  Purple.

(If you happen to disagree......oh well)