The Help (Kathryn Stockett)

--The blurb--
"Amidst the turbulence of the Civil Rights movement, three Mississippi women quietly start their own revolution with a book, some toilets and a chocolate pie. Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren't trusted not to steal the silver...There's Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son's tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from College, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared. Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they'd be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in a search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell..."

--The review--
Given that the highly successful The Help was published in 2009, it would appear that there are still some readers who are a little late to the party (including this writer). However, latecomers should not delay further - Kathryn Stockett's début novel deserves immediate attention. Even if you read nothing else in 2013, make this vibrant and moving opus a priority.

The novel's frequent changes in narrator could be confusing or frustrating, but instead serve to keep up the novel's pace and heighten tension in a positive way. Stockett's mastery of dialect, humour and malapropism is evident from the first pages, and this also keeps the reader hooked. It's perhaps inevitable that such dexterity is not consistently sustainable throughout the book: its weaknesses are that Mae Mobley sometimes speaks with far more perspicacity than is realistic for a three-year-old, that the friendship that purportedly existed between Hilly and Skeeter is insufficiently developed, and that the chapter on the Benefit is redundant (as its happenings could have been told just as easily in half the space through other characters' direct and overheard speech). However, this ultimately does not detract from enjoyment of The Help overall.

Stockett generally controls and develops the relationships in the novel effectively, reinforcing the bonds between Skeeter and Aibileen so that they go from strangers to friends in a realistic and heart-warming manner. As third protagonist Minny is drawn in, and their plans become even more intricate, the reader too becomes increasingly involved, making the unfolding of the trio's story addictive. All characters, without exception, are vivid and human, as well as taking on multiple dimensions so that no one group or person is clearly designated as hero or villain. 

Setting, lifestyle and history is also deeply ingrained in the story-telling, meaning that from Stuart's Confederate shrine of a home to the iced tea and grits prepared lovingly by Aibileen, the reader is left with a more developed understanding of the culture and circumstances in which the plot of The Help is enshrined. It's possible that the ending is a little rushed; however, by this stage readers feel so engaged in the characters' cause that the denouement is simply able to wash over them. The endings to each character's tale provoke mixed emotions, but are wholly appropriate after all that has gone on. The fruits of Stockett's meticulous research are well worth her efforts as readers shut the book with a sense of significance, satisfaction, and the desire to immediately reread (while waiting, of course, for Stockett's next book).

Delirium: The Politics of Sex in America (Nancy L Cohen)

 

--The blurb--

"The 2012 election was supposed to be about the economy, but over the last few months it turned into a debate about sex and women’s rights. In Delirium, Cohen takes us on a [...] journey through the confounding and mysterious episodes of [...] recent politics to explain how we and why we got to this place. Along the way she explores such topics as why Bill Clinton was impeached over a private sexual affair; how George W. Bush won the presidency by stealth; why Hillary lost to Obama; why John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate; and what the 2012 presidential contest tells us about America today. She exposes the surprising role of right-wing women in undermining women’s rights, as well as explains how liberal men were complicit in letting it happen. Cohen uncovers the hidden history of an orchestrated, well-financed, ideologically powered shadow movement to turn back the clock on matters of gender equality and sexual freedom and how it has played a leading role in fueling America’s political wars. Delirium tells the story of this shadow movement and how we can restore common sense and sanity in our nation’s politics."

--The review-- 

As previously mentioned on this blog, Tudor history and American history are given arguably disproportionate importance in Britain's history curriculum, meaning that 18-year-olds often leave school with knowledge of little else in spite of having studied history until the moment of their leaving. However, this emphasis does not mean that everything about American history is covered - and it is clear from Nancy L Cohen's latest book, Delirium, that even those who think they know plenty about American history have only scratched the surface.

Delirium is the title, and madness in various guises is certainly what readers get an alarming insight into throughout this history of the sexual counterrevolution in American politics. In describing how different views on sex and gender in the United States have affected the nation, Cohen is both wide-ranging and detailed, covering topics such as birth control, marriage, and homosexuals in the military. Equally, she keeps the text engaging and readable, condensing what has clearly been long and complex research into accessible chapters without dumbing down. 

The fact that Delirium was written in the midst of the recently-terminated 2012 presidential campaign may mean that this version of the text ages quickly. However, with President Barack Obama having won a second term for the Democrats just days ago, this also leaves the door wide open for future editions and revisions. Full of interesting and little-known facts, Delirium is also concise and well-explained, with plenty of fascinating and largely relevant diversions (although occasionally goes so complicatedly off-topic that the original aim seems distant). 

Some necessary background is given, but at the same time, Cohen does assume that her audience is American and fails to define some key terms from the outset, which would make a glossary handy. However, the author makes up for this with her meticulous research and citations elsewhere in the text, and continually proves herself to be intelligently tolerant and aware of difficulties. Cohen contextualises the issues at hand in a highly distilled manner and gives the reader plenty of food for thought thanks to various jaw-dropping moments and the notion that religion has so much to do with this as to almost be worth a book in itself.

Delirium was an ambitious project, and Cohen has every right to be proud of her achievement. She has spanned a vast time period with dignity, clarity, and concision, and the reader can be left in no doubt of her expert standing. Her other books are certainly worth seeking out, and Delirium itself definitely merits rereads.  

other works by Nancy L Cohen

The Reconstruction of American Liberalism 1865-1914 (2002) 

The 1990s: A Social History of the United States (2009)

Tears of Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath (Michael & Elizabeth Norman)

--The blurb--
"For the first four months of 1942, U.S., Filipino, and Japanese soldiers fought what was America’s first major land battle of World War II, the battle for the tiny Philippine peninsula of Bataan. It ended with the surrender of 76,000 Filipinos and Americans, the single largest defeat in American military history. The defeat, though, was only the beginning, as Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman make dramatically clear in this powerfully original book. From then until the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the prisoners of war suffered an ordeal of unparalleled cruelty and savagery: forty-one months of captivity, starvation rations, dehydration, hard labor, deadly disease, and torture—far from the machinations of General Douglas MacArthur. The Normans bring to the story remarkable feats of reportage and literary empathy. Their protagonist, Ben Steele, is a figure out of Hemingway: a young cowboy turned sketch artist from Montana who joined the army to see the world. Juxtaposed against Steele’s story and the sobering tale of the Death March and its aftermath is the story of a number of Japanese soldiers. The result is an altogether new and original World War II book: it exposes the myths of military heroism as shallow and inadequate; it makes clear, with great literary and human power, that war causes suffering for people on all sides."

--The review--
As time, resources, diversions and worries seem to hurtle at lightning speed towards an ever-changing future, it is perhaps evident that in the kerfuffle to keep up with what's new, some old memories may be forgotten. Thanks to this book, however, the Bataan Death March is one of those events that now won't be. Michael and Elizabeth Norman weave reportage and history with extraordinary skill, and their interest in and passion for their subject constantly shines through. It is grotesque in its description of the soldiers' treatment, injuries and disease, but this is utterly necessary to convey the full horror of the experience, and it goes a long way to making the reader genuinely care for the fates of the servicemen.

However, the focus is not, as one might expect, on making the Americans look like heroes against the demon Japanese. The Japanese are equally well-represented as genuine human beings and the chronicling of these events makes it clear that this is a world suffering, an indiscriminate suffering, borne equally by Filipinos and British as much as by Americans and Japanese. Woven with this is the more detailed story of Ben Steele, a survivor (albeit just barely) of the death march who is still alive today. This is an eventually successful strategy, though it takes some time to pick up speed; interestingly, you only feel to begin that he is the main character when flashbacks to his pre-war life on the Montana prairie start to decrease. This can perhaps be attributed to the novel's occasionally 'piecemeal' feeling, whereby the listing of events with little detail (especially in the runup to the Bataan surrender) can start to make your eyes go a little fuzzy and can make your mind start to wander. The jumping between characters also takes time to get used to, but ultimately enhances the book.

Beyond this, there were just two other areas that struck me as requiring improvement. One was the authors' apparent inability to use prepositions such as 'with' and 'that'; inclusion of these particles would have clarified many of their sentences, making them more fluid. This is also applicable to the couple's use of colons and semi-colons (or, rather, the lack of them). As a Brit, I also took issue with the rather American and sloppy title, "Tears of Darkness". It is explained very clearly at the start of the book that this is a translation of the Japanese word 'anrui', which means exactly this, but surely it would have been more original, and indeed more appropriate, to give the book's title as "Anrui", rather than the more generic one that was eventually chosen? Nevertheless, these are superficial concerns that did not stop me from being moved by the book and finding it a significant read. It shamed me that despite my lengthy studies of World War Two between the ages of 14 and 18, I had not come across these events before. Michael and Elizabeth Norman successfully illuminate and humanise a hidden area of history, and bring to light the many forgotten soldiers who lost their lives in the struggle. We should remember them.

Other works by Elizabeth M Norman
Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam (1990)
We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese (2000)