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Kathryn Stockett on The Calamity Club, The Help, and Writing Mississippi
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Peter Biello sits down with The Help author Kathryn Stockett to discuss her new novel, The Calamity Club, a Depression era story set in Mississippi. Stockett talks about the historical research that transformed the novel, the friendships at its center, her writing process, and how the praise and criticism surrounding The Help shaped her return to fiction.
Kathryn Stockett returns to fiction with The Calamity Club, and in this special episode of Narrative Edge, Peter Biello joins her for a live conversation in Atlanta. They explore the world of the novel, set in Mississippi during the Great Depression, and its two central characters, Bertie Calhoun and 11-year-old Meg. Stockett explains why Oxford, Mississippi, in 1933 gave her the setting she needed and how the era’s poverty, Prohibition, and changing social landscape became part of the story.
Stockett also describes the research discovery that changed the direction of a novel she had already been writing for years: Mississippi’s history of compulsory sterilization laws and the broader American eugenics movement. That history helped her find what she calls an essential truth that had been missing from the story. From there, the conversation turns to female friendship, class, humor, Southern food, and the ways her characters question the rules and prejudices surrounding them.
The conversation also returns to the book that made Stockett famous, The Help. She reflects on writing that novel while homesick in New York, the criticism it later received, and how the experience affected the way she approached Black characters in The Calamity Club. In questions from the audience, Stockett talks about favorite characters, recipes inspired by Demetrie, the people who remain with a writer during a long creative process, and what it was like discussing The Help with Oprah Winfrey.
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