Most writers take eons to develop that ineffable attribute called "voice." In her first novel, "The Help," Kathryn Stockett nails not one but three voices: a to-the-manor-born Southern belle, and two plainspoken black maids who more or less raised many of the white children in town.
Alternating between demure sweet talk and wizened straight talk ("Law, I'm on have to do it while the ladies is here"), Stockett evokes not only the black and white dialects of her native Mississippi, but also the none too subtle shadings of Southern society, circa 1962.
The result became last year's out-of-nowhere bestseller, with almost 2 million hardback books in print 15 months after its publication and a movie in the works.
Like so many novelists, Stockett is writing about what she knows, even if her debut is set almost two decades before she was born. (Her next book will travel further in the Wayback Machine, to Mississippi during the Great Depression.) Stockett will be in town Tuesday to discuss the book, which became the fourth-best fiction seller of 2009 after being rejected more than 40 times.
Q How has the reception to the book differed between the South and other parts of the country?
A The Southerners generally say, "Omigosh, I feel like you captured my childhood." The Yankees usually say, "Omigod, I had no idea this was actually going on. And thank you for telling me about a world that I had no idea about."
Q How about the reactions from blacks and whites?
A They seem to be about the same. Except that occasionally I'll hear from a black person that, "Gosh, you made me think of my mother or my grandmother and what they must have gone through."
