Two Good Books about the 1960s

I recently read two very enjoyable novels that take place in the 1960s. The first one is Wishin’ and Hopin’: A Christmas Story by Wally Lamb. Don’t worry, it is quite short and humorous and not at all like his other novels (She’s Come Undone, The Hour I First Believed) which were 700+pp and felt like an uphill climb. Wishin’ and Hopin’ is billed as a Christmas story, but it’s really a story of a 5th grader named Felix Funicello attending a Catholic elementary school in Connecticut. Felix is small for his age, and he is astonished by the antics of some of his classmates who reach early puberty. So, think nuns, worries about sin, hostess cupcakes, and being a cousin to Annette. I laughed and laughed, and I think you will too.

A first novel by Kathryn Stockett, The Help is set in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi. The novel is written in the voices of three women who collaborate on a book about maids and their employers. One of the voices is Skeeter, a young white woman who loved Constantine, the maid who raised her and then disappeared. Two other voices are long-suffering maids who have worked in many different homes in Jackson. In the Martin Luther King, Jr “I’ve got a dream” era, women in the South have various and complicated relationships with their hired help. Some are love stories and some are horror stories. Stockett uses dialogue and figurative language to create vivid characters. She engages readers in their lives which are sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and often suspenseful. Along with interviewing maids, writing an advice column, and getting kicked out of the Junior League, tall, frizzy-haired Skeeter tries to find her place in a society in which she increasingly does not belong.