Stockett Bestseller is Topic on March 31st
The Stratford Library “Books Over Coffee” program will continue its 2010 winter/spring season with a discussion of the current New York Times bestseller, The Help on Wednesday, March 31st at noon. Katherine Stockett’s popular new novel is special for “Women’s History Month”. “Books Over Coffee” is hosted by Stratford educator and author Kathleen Faggella.
It is 1962 in Mississippi where 22-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from college. She may have a degree, but her mother will not be happy until she has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new in town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.
Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. She currently lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter. The Help is her first novel.
“Books Over Coffee” will be held in the Stratford Library’s Lovell Room beginning at noon on March 31st. Participants are invited to bring a bag lunch to the program and coffee and tea is also served. Limited reading copies of The Help are currently available for loan at the library’s Circulation Desk. For further information call the library’s Public Relations and Programming Office at: 203.385.4162.
Stratford Library Association
2203 Main St., Stratford, CT 06615
203-385-4164
