That literary defense fractured in early 2011 when Ablene Cooper read excerpts of the runaway bestseller. Cooper had worked for twelve years as a domestic worker and babysitter for Kathryn Stockett’s older brother, Robert Stockett III. She spent years caring for Stockett’s niece, often encountering the author at family birthday gatherings and holiday meals in Jackson.
The parallels between Cooper's biography and the novel’s protagonist, Aibileen Clark, were immediately jarring:
In the opening pages of the book, Aibileen is introduced as an African American maid who raises white children, has a distinctive gold tooth, and mourns the death of her son, Treelore, who died in a crushing industrial accident. In reality, Ablene Cooper possessed a prominent gold tooth, reared white infants across Mississippi, and had lost her adult son, Willie, to a fatal accident shortly before Stockett started writing. Willie was run over by an eighteen-wheeler while working on a local highway project.
Cooper discovered the connection only when her employer’s daughter showed her the novel, pointing out how closely the book's opening matched Cooper's voice. When Cooper opened the volume, she found what she described as a personal betrayal: her dead son’s memory refashioned into convenient sentimental dialogue to drive an international bestseller.
