An English professor once told me that a really great novel can't be a really great American novel unless it's plot centers around race issues. I think The Help qualifies in the vein of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird. Stockett illumines the intimate yet volatile relationship between black women who work as maids/nannies/cooks and the white women who employ them in the explosive culture of Civil Rights Era Mississippi. By narrorating from both sides of the relationship, the novel goes where Gone With the Wind never dared to tread, and is rewarded with a truer story.