Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating. Constantine, her beloved maid who raised her, has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. Aibileen is a black maid. A wise, regal woman. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.