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Chapter 1: What challenges did Kathryn Stockett face after the success of The Help?
I'm delighted to say we're starting with Catherine Stockett, who has just published The Calamity Club.
Catherine, thank you very much for being with us.
Thank you, Matt, for having me. Wow, that's some company I'm keeping with, isn't it?
We're delighted to have all of you on the programme. And I think there are lots of people who will be very familiar with your book, The Help. Yes. 15 million copies of it sold globally. And of course, you also had the movie, which I know so many people loved. But they talk about a difficult second album and music. I mean, what happened to you? It's 17 years since you had The Help.
Why has it been so long before we get to have The Calamity Club?
Very good question. I'm asking myself that. But, you know, I got to admit, I was living life. I was raising my daughter. I toured for many years about The Help, you know, hardcover, paperback, movie tie-in, movie set that was, you know, it was... filmed actually in Mississippi. And I think probably the best reason I have is that I just had a lot of false starts.
I somehow convinced myself that I was going to write a really short, simple book. And obviously, I did not turn out with that. But it took me several attempts to kind of finally admit to myself that I can't play it safe, you know, even though I was so determined not to try to write about all of the things that I wrote about in the help that drew criticism. But the truth is,
In The Calamity Club, you know, it's set in 1933. It's based on women. And you can't write about Mississippi during that time and not write about hypocrisy, sexism, racism and discrimination.
Had your confidence been badly damaged by the criticism that you got after The Help came out as a book and again as a movie? All this thing about cultural appropriation and all of that sort of stuff, which got you to a certain extent almost cancelled, didn't it?
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Chapter 2: Why did it take 17 years for Kathryn to release The Calamity Club?
How many pages is it? It's about 650. It's about a kilo in weight. It's a big book. It's a big read. So tell us about the canvas in which you've painted all of these characters, these rich characters, and the story that you have for them.
So, it's, of course, set in Mississippi in a town called Oxford, which is in North Mississippi and also where the University of Mississippi is based, which is very important to the story as, you know, if you make it to part two, you will find out. And there are two voices in this book.
One is an 11-year-old girl named Meg, who one day her mother went to the store and mysteriously never came home. So we meet her two years later in an orphanage, and Meg finds herself unadoptable because nobody wants to adopt the big girls. They only want the babies. And where Meg is headed, you know, where they send the girls when they turn 12, is the vegetable canning factory in Mississippi.
And the reason why the child labor laws didn't apply to canning vegetables is because they were seen as seasonal and they needed the labor. And so there was lots of exploitation for that. The second voice is Bertie Calhoun, a very Irish name, and she's 24. And, you know, people already consider her a spinster because at the ripe old age of 24, she's not married.
And she's come to Oxford to ask her sister. For money, which, you know, nobody wants to ask anybody for money, much less your little sister. But, you know, it's the Great Depression. It's 1933, and times are getting harder and harder for really everyone in America. And these two stories intertwine.
Of course, you didn't grow up in that era. The help you would have had some knowledge of, but this was going back into history for you. So how much research did you do and what did you find out about the era that surprised you?
It was so much research, you know, and I... I don't know why I don't like to write a contemporary novel. and see it through the perspective of my characters. I picked this time in history because it was such a trying time for not only America, but for women. You know, women hadn't really even had the vote for that long by 1933.
And as you will find out in part two because of the plot, I didn't want penicillin to be widely used. if you are a woman and you happen to pick up a certain, you know, from a certain profession, I will say, it was terrifying. If you picked up syphilis or gonorrhea, it could kill you.
And there were no options, especially for women who were essentially poor and didn't have jobs and didn't have families that had money, didn't have husbands. And that's what this story is about, a group of women coming together and looking after themselves.
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Chapter 3: What is the historical setting of The Calamity Club and why is it significant?
They didn't tell him that he shouldn't write about it because he was a man. The way that you got castigated for writing about black women because you were a white woman.
You know, it's complicated. It is. Even I can look at it and say, oh, that is complicated to be a white woman from Mississippi writing in the voices of black women.
Chapter 4: What themes of hypocrisy, sexism, and racism are explored in The Calamity Club?
I see why it's very touchy. And I got to say this. And I said it. I believed it during the help. I still believe it. And I believed it when I was writing The Calamity Club. It is so important just as human beings and especially as a writer for us to try to imagine what it feels like to stand in someone else's shoes. And that doesn't necessarily mean to feel sorry for them.
I think it's so important for us as empathetic and creative human beings to also imagine the successes of other people.
Chapter 5: How did criticism impact Kathryn's confidence in writing her second novel?
I wish that they taught this in schools.
Is empathy something being lost in modern American society?
I think now with, you know, so much on your phone, you can look at something, you can judge it as a problem and you can move on. And it seems that we've lost the ability to ponder a problem because we so quickly move on to the next.
You mentioned earlier that you spent, what was it, four years essentially promoting the help. I mean, what's that like for a writer that you spend so much time putting together a story and you want as many people as possible to read it or when it becomes a movie to watch it.
But how frustrating is that or does it become frustrating talking about it, possibly the same things time after time again, instead of getting to work on something new and creative?
Well, two answers to that. First of all, yes, very frustrating. No one told me at the time, because I only had one book out, that I could say no. Second answer to that is I am a classic procrastinator. And I do kind of think it was a way for me to put off facing that empty page again.
Because so often when we meet authors in here and ask them what's next, they're already well on their way to the next book.
Oh gosh, I wish I was.
Have you even started your third book?
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