The Calamity Club: A Novel
"So immersive, exciting, and downright fabulous, you never want it to end."--Oprah Daily
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The multimillion-copy-selling author of The Help returns with a bold, big-hearted novel about a group of unbreakable women, fighting for what's rightfully theirs--and the power of friendship to change everything.
"Pure, hell-raising entertainment."--The New York Times Book Review
Oxford, Mississippi, 1933.
Abandoned by her mother one Christmas Eve, eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Now one of the unadoptable "big girls" at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed.
Birdie Calhoun, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford to ask her socialite sister to help the struggling family she's left behind. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie discovers her sister's seemingly charmed life is a tapestry of lies.
Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman running low on luck with little left to lose. When their fates--and Meg's--converge, Charlie comes up with an audacious plan for them to take control of their lives. But in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife and women's freedom is fragile, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences.
The Calamity Club will make you laugh, cry, and cheer--an epic testament to underestimated women who know that calamity can be the spark of new beginnings. This is Kathryn Stockett at her most confident, heartfelt, and hilarious--the triumphant return of one of the most beloved storytellers of our time.
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Community Reviews
I loved this story of surviving the troubles of the world in the 1930s. This book is filled with characters standing strong to support others even when it challenged them to reevaluate their own priorities and moral compass. Intertwined monnetary and moral delimmas fill the pages in a way that hold your attention and have you choosing sides and seeking justice and certain outcomes.
Thanks to NetGalley for this digital ARC.
The Calamity Club
by Kathryn Stockett
Seventeen years after The Help, Kathryn Stockett returns with The Calamity Club—a dark, atmospheric Southern epic set during the sweltering Mississippi summer of 1933.
The story follows Birdie Calhoun, a fiercely independent woman trying to save her family farm, and Meg Lefleur, a resilient 11-year-old orphan in the hands of an evil socialite, who is trying to destroy Meg for secret reasons of her own.
Facing financial ruin, hypocritical town moralists, and terrifying era eugenics laws, Birdie forms an unlikely alliance with an entrepreneurial woman named Charlie, who is also Meg’s estranged Mom.
To reclaim autonomy over their lives, Birdie and Charlie engineer a risky and illicit way to make the quick money they need with the help of some old acquaintances of Charlie’s, a group of female societal outcasts with goals of their own.
This Depression-era saga is 656 pages of a definite slow-burn compared to Stockett's debut, the Help. However, her signature wit, and brilliant, vibrant writing style, shine through the grinding economic despair. Her beautiful themes of social justice and bringing families together definitely deliver. It is a triumphant, hell raising return!
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