The Help is about a young white woman in the early 1960s in Mississippi who becomes interested in the plight of the black ladies, maids that every family has working for them.

The novel is told from the perspective of three characters. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Minny, an African American maid who has often offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for jobs; and Skeeter , a young white woman who has recently moved back home. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.