Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, raising her seventeenth white child. Her friend Minny has never held on to a job for very long, but now she’s working for a newcomer with secrets that leave her speechless. And white socialite Skeeter has just returned from college with ambition and a degree but, to her mother’s lament, no husband. Together, these seemingly different women join to work on a project that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town—to write, in secret, a tell-all book about what it’s really like to work as a black maid in the white homes of the South. Despite the terrible risks they will have to take, and the sometimes humorous boundaries they will have to cross, these three women unite with one intention: hope for a better day. Published in 2009, 531 pages. Description from book jacket.