Aibileen Clark is really a middle-aged maid who has spent her entire life raising children that are white and it has recently lost her son. Minny Jackson is an African American maid who has offended her employers despite her family's struggles with money and her desperate need for tasks. And Eugenia"Skeeter" Phelan is a new white woman that has just moved home after graduating college to find out her childhood maid has mysteriously disappeared. These three stories intertwine to explain how life in Jackson, Mississippi revolves around"the help". They are maintained at a specific distance because of racial lines.