Kathryn Stockett published The Help in 2009. Yesterday, May 5, her second novel arrived. Seventeen years is a substantial gap between books. In publishing-announcement time, it is approximately four geological epochs and several opportunities to redesign the cover of the first one.
The Calamity Club returns to Mississippi, but to a different period and a new cast. Its arrival is interesting enough without declaring, before reading it, that the wait has automatically been worth it. A long gestation is a story about a book. The book still has to make its own case.
A second novel under a very large shadow
In her May 5 conversation with Zibby Owens, Stockett described spending more than five years trying to write something short and simple that would avoid the criticism surrounding The Help. She said that eventually meant abandoning the attempt to sidestep racism, discrimination, and the repression of women in her chosen setting.
That is a more useful account of the delay than imagining she simply disappeared. A writer can be working while there is no new spine on the shelf. The public sees the publication dates; the abandoned drafts generally do not get a launch party.
It also gives the familiar second-novel problem a sharper edge. Following a huge success already means writing with an audience looking over your shoulder. Following a heavily debated one adds people asking what you will do differently. Neither group is particularly good at sitting quietly in the imaginary writing room.
Oxford, 1933, and accounts that need attention
The story brings together Birdie Calhoun and eleven-year-old Meg. Birdie arrives in Oxford seeking help from her wealthier sister Frances for their struggling family. Meg lives in a county institution for girls and refuses to accept that her missing mother deliberately abandoned her.
Birdie’s bookkeeping skills connect the two stories when the institution needs its accounts prepared for an inspection. It is a promising narrative arrangement: one woman looking at what the paperwork says, one girl convinced the official story is wrong. Respectability has rarely enjoyed being asked to show its receipts.
The author’s description foregrounds women forming friendships and fighting for control of their lives. In the Owens interview, Stockett also discusses eugenics as an important subject in the novel. That makes the historical setting more than an excuse for period clothes and attractive porches.
What the early reviews actually say
Kirkus’s February review is positive about the storytelling and abundance of plot, while criticizing a thinly drawn villain and a hurried final wrap-up. It recommends the book to readers of Stockett’s debut. That is enthusiasm with qualifications, not a unanimous declaration that every page is beyond dispute.
Tatia Kiser’s May 4 review for the Mississippi Books Page also welcomes the follow-up and considers the long wait worthwhile. Those are reviewers’ judgments, rather than a substitute for a hands-on verdict here.
The combination suggests a book to investigate if you enjoy historical fiction driven by intersecting lives and dramatic turns. If tightly economical storytelling is your preference, the reservations about a sprawling plot may matter as much as the praise. Both responses are allowed at the same book club. Ideally with snacks between them.
A book does not have to settle its author’s entire career
Our piece on the writers behind Evelyn Clarke explored another way authors deal with expectations attached to their names. Stockett is publishing this second novel with her own name prominently on the cover. Readers will bring whatever that name means to them.
But there is a difference between considering an author’s earlier work and forcing a new novel to function only as an answer to it. Useful questions are more specific: whose perspective carries the story, how much room do the characters get, and what does the humor reveal about the world around them?
The cat take: seventeen years is impressive commitment to leaving people waiting at a closed door. Cats understand that part immediately. The more interesting question is what happens when the door finally opens. The Calamity Club is now on the shelf; the conversation can move from wondering whether a second novel will arrive to discussing the one that has.
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