Demetrie came to wait on my grandmother in 1955 and stayed for 32 years. It was common, in Mississippi, to have a black domestic cleaning the kitchen, cooking the meals, looking after the white children.

The Help took her five years to complete and the book was rejected by 60 literary agents before agent Susan Ramer agreed to represent Stockett. Reflective of her first novel Stockett was very close to an African-American domestic worker. A lawsuit was filed in a Mississippi court by Ablene Cooper a maid who used to work for Stockett's brother.

Kathryn Stockett is an American novelist.