In Catalonia, readers following international literature news may be interested in Kathryn Stockett’s latest comments on her second novel, The Calamity Club, published in Catalan as El club de les indomables. The American author, best known for The Help, said the success of her first book made the new one much harder to write.
Stockett, who grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, said she felt the pressure of readers and critics while working on the novel. She contrasted that with the first book, which she began writing in New York after 9/11, saying it started as something personal and private.
She spent about five years promoting The Help, which sold 15 million copies and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film. After that, she spent another four or five years trying to write a second book that would avoid the criticism her earlier work received. She said several early drafts of the first half felt weak and did not capture the truth she wanted to tell.
The novel is set in 1930s Mississippi and addresses racism, hypocrisy, and forced sterilisation. Stockett said the subject has been largely ignored in the United States. She cited estimates that between 70,000 and 80,000 people were forcibly sterilised in the country, while some activists believe the real figure was higher.
She also referred to Fannie Lou Hamer’s phrase, “Mississippi appendectomy”, used in the 1950s and 1960s to describe Black women being sterilised without consent after going to hospital for other treatment. Stockett described forced sterilisation as a weapon of social control over women’s bodies.
Stockett said she researched real testimonies and used historical photographs to shape the novel, including a Lewis Hine image of a nine-year-old girl working in a fish factory. She said the girl’s direct gaze helped inspire the character Meg. The book also uses the contrast between a grand mansion and a clandestine brothel as a symbol of Southern appearances versus private reality.
For readers in Catalonia looking for more coverage of literature and social history, see our news tag. You can also read more on the official background to forced sterilisation and the life of Fannie Lou Hamer.