Want to learn the ideas in The Help better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of The Help by Kathryn Stockett here.
Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.
Video Summaries of The Help
We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on The Help, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Kathryn Stockett.
1-Page Summary of The Help
Overall Summary
The novel starts in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi. Aibileen Clark (a black maid) is taking care of the only child of Elizabeth Leefolt (a white housewife). Hilly Holbrook and Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan are discussing whether to pass a bill that would require every white household to have a separate bathroom for black maids. Skeeter finds Aibileen and asks if she wishes things could be different. She doesn’t want to tell Skeeter how she really feels, so she says everything’s fine.
A few days later, Minny Jackson loses her job. She’s also been fired by Hilly Holbrook because of rumors that she was a thief. After losing her job, she tells Aibileen about the revenge she took on Hilly Holbrook and won’t tell her any more details other than it involved a pie. In the end, Minny finds work with Celia Foote, who treats everyone equally regardless of race or class.
Meanwhile, Skeeter gets a job writing an advice column about housekeeping for the Jackson Journal. She learns that Aibileen’s son had been working on his own book but died before he could finish it. Skeeter asks her friend Elizabeth Leefolt to interview Aibileen about her experiences with white families and decides to write a story based on those interviews.
At first, Aibileen is hesitant to tell her stories because she’s afraid of losing her job or being targeted by racists. She agrees to talk with Skeeter for the sake of stopping racism in Jackson. Minny also tells Skeeter her story, but no one else will out of fear. Hilly finds a book on Jim Crow laws in Skeeter’s bag and thinks that she may be an integrationist; therefore, Hilly distances herself from her and tells other women not to associate with her anymore.
Hilly’s maid, Yule May, steals a ring from Hilly to pay for her twins’ college education. She had previously asked Hilly for money but was refused. The maids are angry at the injustice and decide to contribute their stories in Skeeter’s book.
When the book is nearly finished, Skeeter starts to worry that her maid’s pseudonyms won’t be enough to keep Hilly from figuring out that she wrote a book about Jackson. Minny tells Aibileen and Skeeter how she got back at Hilly for ruining her chances of finding work. She baked a pie with her own feces in it and fed it to Hilly. When Hilly reads this story in the book, she’ll know for sure that the book is about Jackson, but will also use her influence to steer people away from coming to the same conclusion so that they don’t find out what happened between them.
After the book gets published, people in Jackson start to realize it’s about them. Minny’s plan works and Hilly tries to convince them otherwise. Skeeter ends up accepting a job as an editorial assistant in New York and after a tearful goodbye with Aibileen, picks up and goes. Even so, Aibileen still has her column in the local paper where she tells more stories of the maids’ lives. She feels unburdened now that she is able to tell their stories at last.
Chapter 1
In 1962, an African-American maid named Aibileen Clark worked for a white family in Jackson, Mississippi. She had raised seventeen children before she started working with Mae Mobley Leefolt. Elizabeth Leefolt was the mother of Mae Mobley and didn’t feel any love towards her daughter. Aibileen provided the affection that Miss Leefolt did not provide to her child.
Aibileen remembers losing her son, Treelore. He was writing a book about being black in Mississippi and died at the age of 24 when he slipped off a loading dock and got crushed by a trailer. Aibileen couldn’t get out of bed for three months after his death. She took on an extra job to help with expenses but still felt like there was something growing inside her that made it hard to accept people around her.
