Food from The Help

What could be more fun? Check out this article in the August issue of Food and Wine magazine about all the food in the movie, The Help.

As of yesterday, my local bookstore didn't have the August issue yet. But soon!

Tomato aspic, collard greens, black-eyed peas. No thank you on the pie recipe, however.

Here's a little taste (excuse the pun) from the article:

In The Help, the character Minny reveres Crisco, calling it "the most important invention in the kitchen since jarred mayonnaise." She uses Crisco to fry chicken to perfection, admiring the way the vegetable shortening "bubbles up like a song" as it cooks.

I am feeling a sudden craving for fried chicken.

But you know, I wonder about that line from the book, about jarred mayonnaise. True Southern cooks still pride themselves on making homemade mayo. Just seems like an odd thing...


Related posts: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about The Help

Historical Hair

Lots of interesting discussion happened when I posted a recent blog pondering what really is Historical Fiction anyhow. One commenter brought up how kids parse out the meaning. To them, a book such as Mixed-up Files could be classified historical because it took place in a time the young reader might not understand. Prices, hairstyles, clothing, music= all part of the past to a child born in 2000.

I know, I know. I'm still (over?)thinking the topic.

But speaking of hair...

When a group of friends gathered last weekend, something about a certain movie confounded us. We all lived in Mississippi in the early 1960s, the setting of one of the most popular books in recent memory, The Help. Soon to be a major motion picture, the movie's rendition of Skeeter's hair is bugging us all. I know, I know. It's a small detail. And we've only see the trailer for the movie. I can't wait to see the movie and I'm sure I'll love it, as I loved many things about the book. But I wish they'd consulted somebody actually alive during the time for hair advice.

Like us maybe!
Since our small gathering was hosted by fabulous cooks and very creative women, the party favors were "church fans" featuring a likeness of each of us, circa 1963.

About the hair. Do you see a single picture without straight hair? Flips predominate.

We ironed our hair, people! We slept on big rollers to get the curls to straighten out!
We were not alone. Check out any college yearbook, even those outside the South. 
I doubt you will see many hairstyles of Emma Stone's/ Skeeter's movie frizziness.

While I'm sharing pictures, and since it was so delicious, here's one of our many gourmet meals. Pictured- shrimp salad, artistically accented by blanched asparagus spears. Key lime pie, chocolate mousse. Wonderful bread. I could go on.

(Photos by Eileen Harrell, Artline Graphics)

Related posts: Kathryn Stockett
The Help, The Movie

The Help, the movie

Check out these photos. Stills from the movie. Release date is next summer.
The little girl pictured is, according to my very interesting evening with the author in Baltimore recently, Kathryn Stockett's real daughter.

Related posts: Kathryn Stockett Appearance
The Help, the Movie 
The Book, All You Needed to Know

Kathryn Stockett

This week I had the privilege and the fun of hearing the author of The Help speak to a very bright, enthusiastic audience in Baltimore. The fundraiser celebrated The Caroline Center's 15 years of "Transforming the Lives of Women Through Education." This is an amazing organization that helps under-skilled and under-educated women prepare for the workplace.

Held at the College of Notre Dame (a women's college in Baltimore), the event was packed, the auditorium full, upstairs and down. In fact, Kathryn Stockett said it was possibly the largest crowd she'd yet addressed on her widespread tour. Looking out at the mostly female, sold-out audience, in her very Southern, surprisingly soft voice, she said "Please be gentle," and we all laughed.

I'm going to skip over how terrifically she reads from her fascinating, funny, intriguing, best-selling novel. She's just that good. (Click here if you're interesting in very insightful comments from good readers discussing the book.) I'm also going to leave out many of the things she said about the movie directed by her childhood friend Tate Taylor. There was just never anybody other than her friend under consideration to direct and write the screenplay. She spoke with great enthusiasm in answer to questions about the movie.

Well, maybe just one brief story (This week they were in Jackson "at a drugstore where we used to go all the time," she told us, but most of the scenes are filming in Greenwood because it looks a lot like Jackson did in 1963.)

Her story about her friend Tate involved stealing his dad's car and driving to New Orleans, at age 14. For those of us who grew up in Mississippi, this isn't exactly startling news. We could drive at age 15 and get a learner's permit at 14. Many took off to New Orleans, just for the excitement of it. We certainly sneaked out of our houses in the middle of the night and drove our parents cars around the neighborhood. But I digress...

The reason she told the story was to illustrate their theory that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission. And that she was a wild hellion, "hell on wheels" in fact, with a co-conspirator to whom she's fiercely devoted. She told how she and Tate dreamed up awful things (at this point there was a huge clap of thunder outside the auditorium and the skies opened up). She thinks perhaps that was how she was able to conceive of the Pie Scene...

Here are some of the audience questions, with answers. The questioners were articulate, mostly not asking the "how do you get your ideas" type I often hear at writing conferences and workshops. I really liked that about the evening.

One disclaimer: I am, of course, paraphrasing. I didn't record anything. These are just my notes. Please do not quote these answers as if they are the exact words of Kathryn Stockett. On a few occasions, I'll put quotation marks around something that was pretty much an exact quote.

Q: What was the reaction to the book from your friends and family?

A: After over 60 rejections from agents, my mother was so happy. Most family members have been supportive. (Here she hesitated but gave no clarification.)

To a follow-up question about why all the rejections, she explained that her "story was not there yet."

Q: How did she research the African American characters' stories and voices of the time?

A: She wishes she'd done more. She used the Jackson phone book to get a sense of what the culture was. She doesn't like to do research. She likes to listen.

(My own note: Stockett was not alive in 1963. She admits to not having interviewed many/ any African American women who lived during these times.)

Q: Why was the Naked Man in the book? Was that a symbol of anything?

A: (laughingly answered!) She's now putting one in every book she writes because the publisher told her it didn't belong in the story...
(real answer) Because she didn't just want the story to be just about race. She wanted to show how there's not that much that separates us.

When she grew up in Jackson, she was completely unaware that there was a race problem. She grew up in the "white bubble" parents created around her and her friends. She never saw her beloved maid's house, never went to the Black side of town. Surprisingly to me, she knew nothing of her maid's personal life.

"I am so proud that so much has changed, that people are talking about race," Stockett said. She's glad her book has opened up the topic for discussion, even though it has always been taboo.

The last question/ comment came from an African American woman near the front. She admitted that she hadn't yet read the book but that she's looking forward to it. She herself is a nanny to a young white boy, and she described the amazing love they have between them. How she drops him off at school and has even been mistaken for his mother by his young classmates and even by a substitute teacher. ("My how the times have changed," I heard a woman behind me say.) The speaker then told of growing up in Baltimore, of attending one of the first high schools to integrate in the 1960s. (Here I'm paraphrasing.) "We all got along just fine, black and white. And then Roots came along and everybody wanted to be Kunta Kinte." A funny, articulate lady, she told Kathryn Stockett she'd be happy to go with her to the awards ceremonies! Then she told us how she was a graduate of the Caroline Center and proud to speak a little about growing up Black in the 60s in the South. (My own note here: if anybody ever tries to say that Baltimore isn't the South, they have no clue. I lived there. I love the place! It's very Southern.)

Yes, my how the times have changed.

What a fitting ending for a wonderful evening.

The Help: The Movie

Yes, I had a few problems with the book, and you can read my comments and those of a few friends who grew up with me during that era on this blogpost about the book. One of the most telling comments I've heard, from an amazing writer whose new book about the era I truly admire? If nothing else, The Help's bestseller status has opened up a dialog on the topic that didn't exist before.
I'd second that.

But still, it's pretty exciting having a movie made right up the road a piece from my hometown (Why is it we consider the place we grew up and spent our formative years, no matter where we wander, as our hometown? There's even been a slight debate going on in our family about where your Facebook hometown should be, and we've come down solidly on the side of where we lived as kids, the place we have strongest and best memories. But that's another story..)

So from what I understand, the movie of The Help is being filmed mostly in Greenwood, Mississippi. There's a terrific independent bookstore right in the middle of town, Turnrow Books, and if you want to follow the news, follow their blog for frequent updates.

Right now, here's what I know. The movie has been cast. The director, Tate Taylor, is a friend of the author and a Mississippi native. They are scoping out the area for authentic accents and locales. (I know this because my most authentic friends have been interviewed, and they still talk just like all of us homegrown Mississippians started out talking before our accents got bastardized!)

Here's what the Turnrow Books blog says about the cast:

For those fans of the book dying to know who will play whom, we've heard a bit of casting: Emma Stone (Zombieland, Superbad) will play Skeeter, Viola Davis (an Oscar nominee for Doubt) will play Aibileen, Bryce Dallas Howard (the upcoming third Twilight movie, Eclipse) will play Hilly, and Octavia Spencer, who toured and read with Stockett during her initial book tour, is rumored to be playing Minny.

I think most of this has now been verified by DreamWorks.
Stay tuned for updates.

The Help: All You Wanted to Know

Having grown up in mostly the same time/same place--or pretty close to it-- as the characters in the runaway best seller THE HELP, I'm continually asked what I think of the novel. Now that more and more Book Groups are discussing the book, I'm asked even more. When the movie is out, I'm sure I'll take up my role as explainer of the truth of the times. This was a role I accepted when I left the South and moved to Massachusetts in the late 60s, when the Civil Rights Movement was at its most divisive. Back then, I continually defended and sometimes even trashed my home state. Then when I finally figured that everybody's home state had its own set of problems, I let go of some of my negative energy and went with the flow. But now with the publication of The Help (which I truly enjoyed on many levels), I'm back to answering questions. So if you've found this blog post on a search and are looking for answers, you've come to the right place.

In a recent chat session with some Mississippi women, past and present residents that I know and love, we all had strong and slightly different takes on the book. I'll share a few here. These are not necessarily my own opinions, FYI:

The character Hilly was totally false to me. I never knew any debutante, high school sorority sister, or Junior League member in Mississippi who would be so concerned with Blacks using a different bathroom that they would act as Hilly did. Her actions just did not fit the typical Southern women I have known. I think it ruined the book for me because I thought there had to be a better, more realistic way to create the needed tension. I HAVE known mean people who have created trouble for others for no apparent reason other than meanness, so that was realistic to me. But Hilly working for Black people to go to separate bathrooms in the homes where they worked, and some of her other actions, didn't ring true to me. If anything, the girls I knew who would have been activists would have been pro integration!
Now, wouldn't it be interesting if someone interviewed the author and SHE knew some Southern woman who was obsessed as Hilly was------

(Another friend spoke up:)
I agree with you about Hilly. I just wanted to slap her!!

(We focused a lot on Hilly:)
Hilly seems way too much. I'd forgotten the way she campaigned about the toilets. I can't imagine anyone doing that.

(And another:)
I liked the maids a whole lot better than I liked those tacky White People..
I think there were probably people of our grandmother and mother's generation who acted like Hilly, rather than anybody I knew, our age or Hilly's age. But you have to remember that older generation was raised by parents who remembered, vividly, slavery and the Civil War, if only via stories their own grandparents told. Times did change for us all, didn't they.

(Still more:)
I felt that the story was good and told from a different "slant."
However, the characters were stereotypical and the story told almost as another gratuitous Mississippi bashing. By doing so, she trivialized the message. If it has made us look deeper at our past history and relationships, then it has served a purpose. It was good entertainment, but Stockett was in over her head. Rather than a "chick book" for book clubs, it could have been an outstanding piece of literature. The sad thing is that people from other parts of the country will read this book as a documentary instead of fiction. Poor Mississippi. The state is like that proverbial blade of grass that gets mowed down every time it sticks its head up.

(And this from another:)
I will say, I am glad that I read the book. I won't say that I thought it was as glorious, wise and poignant as those who critiqued the book on its dust jacket.I feel that perhaps most of Stockett's characters were over-stated.... the good ones were TOO good, the bad ones were TOO
bad...I could have used more subtlety...I personally find it hard to believe that a female, (even though formally educated) in the deep south in 1962 could have been that aware. Hindsight and knowledge and history and facts and research have been necessary for most of us to become aware of that unique time.. We were so protected.

(In conclusion:)
One of the interesting parts of the book for me is the way it's produced a cultural dialog about our racial past in the South. It was a very compelling book to me, a gutsy book. Those first person voices are very powerful.

Yes, a cultural dialog for sure, even among old friends.

And these comments, from a Book Group discussion a friend in Baltimore (made up of a few Southerners and a few who aren't) related to me:
Most of the group enjoyed the book on some level. Some thought it was merely entertaining, some thought it was enlightening. The greatest difference of opinion seemed to be regarding how the characters were depicted. Generally, most thought that the black women were well developed and interesting characters, although some felt that in real life, they would have been too afraid to speak up as they did in the book. Many thought the white women seemed unrealistic and stereotypical and more shallow and uniformed than college graduates would have been.. I thought this was interesting, given the fact that the book was written by a white woman, who should have had a better understanding of other white women than the black women she so beautifully portrayed.

Most of the group applauded the author's portrayal of the relationships between the black women and the white children they raised and how these relationships can be affected by outside forces. They were more critical of the depiction of the relationships between Skeeter and her friends and Skeeter and her mother, feeling that they were less believable.

Those of us who listened to it liked it even better -- the audiobook is very well done. I played a few excerpts for the group so that others could hear the different voices.

Here are two reviews that might help Book Groups' discussions. Be sure to read the comments at the end of the California Literary Review!

MS Magazine Review
California Literary Review (review by an African American reviewer)

And lastly, click here for Kathryn Stockett, in her own words.

Escape from Snowmageddon

I took a blogging break this weekend to play with my friend Julie, a visitor from The North. We had great fun listening to The Help (terrific recording!) and talking about Olive Kitteridge (which we both adored). Although Julie's very good at prodding my writing along, this time we mostly focused on The Weather. When they cancelled her return flight to Baltimore, I got to keep her for an extra day or two. We shopped, walked in the sunshine, ate, and watched Emma on TV.

(Thanks, Kate and Carl, for the pictures!)



Here's what she escaped.
(Her street in Baltimore County.)












And this is my daughter's street in Bethesda... Had the plow arrived yet? She says not until Monday night. (Actually, this is a nearby street. Hers is still unplowed, deep, undrivable...)





Neither rain, nor sleet, nor... HA!

(No mail for a while, I guess.)At least the sun's shining?



Almost 30 inches? Maybe I'll get Julie until April! Lots of books yet to read and talk about.

(What she's recommending I read next: REMARKABLE CREATURES.
Here's what I'm recommending she read next: the Jackson Brodie trilogy by Kate Atkinson.)

Books into Movies

Just read over at the Christian Science Monitor's book blog that The Help is being fast-tracked to moviedom. No surprises, but can't wait to hear more. Lots of weeks on the best seller list, the novel has movie written all over it.

The Help

My reviews for Delta Magazine are rarely online, so this one won't be there long. Click here to read what I wrote about THE HELP. Click before July, when the new issue hits the newstands.

The Help

My review copy just arrived. I sat right down and read Chapter 1. I can tell I'm not going to get a thing done till I finish this book. From the very beginning, it's powerful. And so far, so true.