Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosAuthor Kathryn Stockett’s debut book, “The Help,” has been chosen for A Novel Idea … Read Together, Deschutes Public Library’s annual community reading event. It kicks off in April with book-related programs and will bring Stockett to town in May.
Submitted photos
Line between family and ‘The Help’
By David Jasper / The Bulletin
Published: October 18. 2009 4:00AM PSTDeschutes Public Library has selected “The Help,” the debut novel by author Kathryn Stockett, for the 2010 installment of A Novel Idea ... Read Together, the library’s annual countywide community read- ing event.
The news was made public Saturday at a public reception at the Bend Public Library. The library plans to hold the kickoff for A Novel Idea on April 7, with dovetailing discussions and other events to rally readers around the book leading up to Stockett’s Central Oregon visit May 7-8.
According to her book bio, Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Miss., and graduated from the University of Alabama, where she studied English and creative writing. For nine years, she lived in New York, where she worked in marketing and magazine publishing. She now lives in Atlanta with her husband and daughter.
Set in the South of the early 1960s, “The Help” gives voice to three characters: two black maids and a young college graduate looking for the missing maid who had raised her.
Library Community Relations Manager Chantal Strobel met Stockett at a library conference in Chicago earlier this year. The author “was raised by a black nanny,” Strobel says. “She wrote this book in the voice of these African-American women who are raising these white, wealthy babies. They raise the kids until they’re 10, 11, 12 years old. They’re the most prominent force in these kids’ lives.”
“It’s a beautiful, moving story that’s about family relationships and a lot about prejudice,” she adds. For example, during the time period, it was common for well-off white families to install a separate bathroom outside the house for black nannies to use.
“The Help” was published last spring, and the Novel Idea selection committee was turned on to it by Hayley Wright, owner of Between the Covers bookstore in Bend.
“We’d read, like, 22 different books and nothing had really stood out for us,” Strobel says. “She gave it to us, and it just had an instant connection with all of us in different ways.”
Besides being a great read, Strobel notes that the book, as of Oct. 9, was riding high at No. 5 on The New York Times’ bestseller’s list.
“That’s why we felt like we have to announce it sooner than later,” Strobel says. “Because it’s just been creeping up and up. So we want people to know about it early.”
When Strobel met with Stockett, “My first question was — and I didn’t mean it in a harsh way — but, ‘Why do you feel you have the right to write in that voice?’” she recalls. “To me, that took a lot of courage and guts, being this white Southern belle from this wealthy family, and then writing this book that’s very compelling, but very much in the voice of these maids and nannies.”
To which Stockett responded: “Well, to be frank, Chantal, I never in my life thought it would be published.”
“She said, ‘I was just writing this story from my heart because I thought it’s a story that needs to be told,’” Strobel says.
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly wrote “what perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel.” Janet Maslin of The New York Times predicted that “book groups armed with hankies will talk and talk.”
A Novel Idea organizers made another well-timed choice when it selected Khaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner” as its pick for 2005, just as the book was setting off en route to becoming a major best-seller.
Previous years’ picks include “The River Why” by David James Duncan; “Bowerman and the Men of Oregon” by Kenny Moore; and “The World to Come” by Dara Horn.
“The Help” “does have some civil rights issues in (it),” Strobel says. “I love the tie-in of having an African-American president. ... It just felt like the right time to be talking about this.”
To learn more, call 541-312-1031 or go to www.dpls.us.
David Jasper can be reached at 541-383-0349 or at djasper@bendbulletin.com.
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