The Author of ‘The Help' Wrote a Second Novel. Yes, Following Up Was Daunting.

Asharq Al-Awsat

16-03-2025

Fifteen years after her blockbuster novel 'The Help' sparked conversation and criticism for its portrayal of the lives of Black maids in the South, Kathryn Stockett is publishing a new novel.
Set in 1933 in Oxford, Miss., 'The Calamity Club' centers on a group of women whose lives intersect as they struggle to get by during the Depression. It will be published in April 2026 by the independent press Spiegel & Grau.
Anticipation for a follow-up from Stockett was high. When it was released in 2009, 'The Help' caused a stir with its frank depiction of racial inequality. It went on to sell some 15 million copies, spent more than two years on the New York Times best-seller list, and was adapted into an Academy Award-winning movie.
In a video interview from her home outside of Natchez, Miss., Stockett admitted that writing a second novel in the long shadow of her debut was daunting.
'The pressure was definitely on,' she said. 'The fear of failure, it really weighs on a writer.'
The novel also drew sharp criticism for its portrayal of Black characters and their speech, which some readers and critics found insensitive and offensive. Viola Davis, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the film, later said she regretted participating, adding that she felt the film failed to accurately capture the voices and lives of Black women.
In some ways, the debate over 'The Help' foreshadowed the 'own voices' movement in the literary world, which pushed for more diversity in literature from writers drawing on their own cultural backgrounds.
Stockett said that 'The Help' would most likely not have found a publisher in today's environment, but that she doesn't regret the way she told the story.
'I doubt that 'The Help' would be published today, for the fact that a white woman was writing in the voice of a Black woman,' she said. 'I did get a lot of criticism but it didn't get under my skin, because it started conversations.'
'The Help' was inspired in part by Stockett's relationship with a woman named Demetrie McLorn, who worked as a maid for her family and died when Stockett was a teenager.
The story, which takes place in Mississippi in the early 1960s, has multiple narrators: a Black woman named Aibileen who works as a nanny and housekeeper for white families, Aibileen's outspoken friend Minny, and a young white woman, Skeeter, who is appalled by the racism she witnesses.
Stockett's new novel, set in the segregated South, also engages with the issue of race, but not as directly, Stockett said.
'Race is always in the background,' she said. 'It's probably always going to be in the background of any book I write.'
Stockett first began working on a novel set in Depression-era Mississippi in 2013. She did extensive research into the era, learning about the Farm Act, child labor laws, the eugenics movement and the forced sterilization of women in prison, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's economic policies.
The story is narrated by two white female characters: an 11-year-old girl who lives in an orphanage and a young woman from the Delta who has come to Oxford in hopes of helping her family through hard times.
In 2020, after writing some 800 pages, Stockett felt stuck, and almost abandoned the book. A friend who had read the manuscript connected her with Julie Grau, co-founder of Spiegel & Grau. They worked for years without a contract, and kept the project quiet. A few years later, they signed a deal. With its release next year, the book will be published simultaneously in Britain by Fig Tree and in Canada by Doubleday Canada.
'There's something really precious about giving writers the time and the space to execute that follow up,' Grau said. 'It was really remarkable and ideal to shield her from the glare.'
Stockett said she was so stunned by the success of her debut that she's set aside any expectations about how 'The Calamity Club' will be received.
'I can't believe it happened then,' she said, 'and I have no idea what's going to happen this time around either.'
The New York Times