I read Kathryn Stockett’s wonderful novel The Help soon after it was published and my American niece-in-law drew my attention to it. I marvelled at, and empathised with, black servants employed in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi and longed for more. I didn’t, incidentally, think the 2011 film quite did it justice.
“More” has been a long time coming – seventeen years to be precise – but, by golly, it was worth waiting for. The Calamity Club is a thick, meaty, 638-page novel, Dickensian in scope and scale. But of course we’re not, in Victorian London. And if you thought puritanical hypocrisy reigned in 1860s Britian, try 1930s Mississippi. I learned social history from this novel which shocked me to the core. Radical “Christianity” has a lot to answer for.
There are two narrators. First there’s Meg, a perceptive, highly intelligent, damaged 11-year-old who has apparently been dumped by her mother and is living in a hideously cruel orphanage in the town of Oxford. I hope Stockett invented “the belt closet” where children are beaten but I fear she probably didn’t. In parallel there’s Birdie. She is 24, unmarried and up from the Delta region to plead with her wealthy married sister because she and her impoverished mother and grandmother are in debt and need help. Birdie meets Meg when she goes to volunteer at the orphanage, where her sister heroine-worships Garnett Pittman, the foul woman in charge.
Thereafter the complications set in, thick and fast. Sparing you the spoilers there is something odd about Birdie’s brother-in-law, Rory who isn’t paying the staff and seems to have a distant relationship with his needy, tiresome wife. Why does Garnett not want Meg to be adopted – even when she’s selected by an apparently wealthy couple on one of the institution’s ghastly “view days”? Eventually the truth seeps out and it isn’t pretty. Underpinning all this is the Depression, lack of money, prohibition and the appalling doctrinaire suppression which dogged Mississippi in the early 1930s.
The Calamity Club is full of issues, all visited with warmth and humanity. Education, the power of literature and female inequality are all here. So are historical horrors such as the forcible sterilisation (“ropes are cheaper than anaesthesia”) of prostitutes and the ruthless treatment of “diseased” gay men in hospital penitentiaries. Suicide is in the mix too and so is despairing recourse to alcohol.
Best of all, however, is the way this novel presents and celebrates female friendship. Five women – each with a history – come together on a pretty unlikely project whose nickname gives the novel its chirpy title. Several other woman are there to help make it work and eventually they succeed in what they set out to do and the reader wants to cheer. Hurrah for sisterhood and taking charge despite all the forces which are against you. It may not be quite plausible at this point so read this part as a fable if you prefer.
Despite the seriousness of much of the subject matter, The Calamity Club made me laugh aloud in glee several times. Meg’s wry, inner thoughts and observations are often funny and so is the dawning realisation of what the titular Calamity Club actually is.
There are some unforgettable characters in this novel. Charlie whose brains and single-minded determination drive the Calamity Club is masterly. She has one aim in life – to get custody of her daughter – and we believe in her totally. But if the “Vice Committee” of which Garnett is now chair get wind of where she is she’ll be thwarted. Then there’s Tom, Meg’s adoptive father – a tragic but loveable man. We also meet several delightful, caring, decent black servants who leap off the page as people you’d like to know in real life. Virginia, the feisty, female medical student is great too.
Part of the reason it all works so well is that Stockett is from Jackson, Mississippi and knows the state like the back of her hand. She has also – QED – spent many years researching the history. I shall say nothing about the ending, although for hundreds of pages, I had no idea where she could/might/would take it. Suffice it to say that I smiled when I reached the last page. I also felt bereft because this is one of the most absorbing new novels I’ve read in ages and I was sorry when it was over.
I expect the film rights are already sold – there are some fabulous roles for actors here. This fine novel deserves the very best possible adaptation for screen. Please, please, please don’t cock it up.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: The Best of Betjeman selected by John Guest
