You might well ask. I stumbled across a little news blurb last week about a lawsuit filed against Kathryn Stockett, author of a truly fabulous first novel, The Help. (If you haven’t read it yet, run, don’t walk, to your nearest bookstore and buy this book. It’s that good.)

It’s well known that Stockett grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, where The Help is also set (albeit fifty years ago), and that her family had an African American maid in their home. So certainly some of her characterization comes from her own life, and no one would disagree that she is entitled to write what she knows in a work of fiction.

But here’s where it gets tricky. The main character in this “work of fiction” is named Aibileen Clark, a black middle-aged nanny working for a white family with young children; Aibileen’s grown son has recently died, and she has a gold tooth. She is also, it should be said, portrayed very sympathetically.

The lawsuit is being brought by one Ablene Cooper, a sixty-year-old black woman with a gold tooth who has long worked as a housemaid in Jackson, Mississippi. She lost a grown son to cancer some years ago. Hm.

But wait, there’s more: Ablene Cooper works for Kathryn Stockett’s older brother and his wife; she’s helped raise their children for the last twelve years. She still works for them. She has even baby-sat for Stockett’s own daughter.

Naming characters is a tricky business; it’s hard work to get it right, and a lot of people get it woefully wrong. (I wrote about this a few weeks ago.) And I gotta say Ablene Cooper is a pretty fabulous name, all things considered. But oh, Kathryn, Kathryn, Kathryn … if you’re smart enough to write a book this wonderful, shouldn’t you also be smart enough to come up with some original names? And to know you shouldn’t use real folks’ names?

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