The Calamity Club
This week’s summer review ☀️ The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
Coming to you straight from the Danish countryside, courtesy of the lovely Christina Mousavizadeh 🙏❤️
“For those of us who enjoyed ‘The Help’ by Kathryn Stockett (published in 2009), it has been a long wait, but finally her new novel, ‘The Calamity Club’, has hit the shelves, and I am happy to say that it was worth the wait.
While ‘The Help’ depicted the lives of African Americans working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s (if you haven’t read it, you should:-) and tackled issues of race, ‘The Calamity Club’ focuses more on issues of class, poverty and social norms.
Also set in Mississippi but this time in the depression and prohibition era of the 1930s, it is the story of Birdie, a woman living in poverty, who is sent to Oxford, Mississippi to ask her sister and her wealthy husband for help.
Birdie’s sister volunteers at an orphanage for children of what is described as ‘feeble minded’ women. Here, she meets 11 year old Meg, who was found abandoned on the docks and housed at the orphanage, and the two strike up a friendship that will change both their lives.
‘The Calamity Club’ is (like ‘The Help’) told through different voices and different perspectives. It is a story of strong women who defy societal norms to do what is right. The novel touches upon the dominant realities of the time and place; prohibition, sterilization, and while not the main subject the story does, of course, also involve segregation, which was a fact of life for so many in the South.
The novel is a story of how prejudices and judgments cloud our view of others right up until we find ourselves in situations that remind us of our shared humanity and everyone’s rightful claim to basic human rights.
The character research and descriptions of women from all walks of life are just excellent, and if you are up for the 700 pages, then give it a go. You won’t regret it!”
Happy reading!