I love that feeling after reading something that rearranges you. You fold over that last sheet or two of blank paper at the end, secretly hoping, longing for another sentence or two to draw out the story. But all your left with is some space for thinking and taking in what you just read. And in the case of The Help (curse this blog interface for not having a way to underline words) there is quite a lot to take in.
I won't go into great detail about the book or its plot, to spoil it for the one or two people in the universe who will read this. Suffice it to say it's set in the 1960s, in Jackson Mississippi, during some of the most monumental Civil Rights triumphs and failures. There is injustice, in grave degree. There are a lot of things that surprise you, the reader, especially if you never lived in the 60's and grew up somewhere in the rural west where diversity and racism are about as common as elephants marching through town. I knew a total of four, maybe five people in school that weren't white. And to my knowledge, they weren't ever bullied, or had to be afraid to use the wrong toilet, or ever felt the isolation of segregation. I thank God that I was not born in an era where I might have been raised to hate, or had to see that cruelty for myself. But then again, I'm grateful I know it existed, so I can see how much has changed and still needs to change in the world.
Books like this, the ones about social justice that people prefer not to see, erased or glossed off of their textbooks and television, often have the strange effect of making me feel both larger and smaller than I really am. Larger in the sense that I am on the outside of the scenes, looking into the minds of all the characters at once, in a time period where things are vastly different. And smaller in the sense that I cannot imagine the amount of work and sweat and editing that had to go into something so powerful. Stockett had little to lose by today's terms by printing this book compared to what the characters in her book risked, yet just witnessing the amount of personal research and tailoring...and how much of herself was pressed onto ink...I think all writers risk a little bit by putting so much into the public eye, where people are free to hate and sneer and disregard.
I have written volumes of random essays, interviews, journals and tidbits in my twenty years. And while each felt a certain weight of importance at the time of its birth, not one has ever felt too important. Like the world really needed it right then. I pray that someday, somehow, I will write something half as brilliant as The Help with even half as much success in opening the world's eyes to something deep and hidden.
*image by google*
