The Calamity Club
By Kathryn Stockett
The Calamity Club is set in Oxford, Mississippi, in
1933, Depression-era America at its most desperate, most divided, and most
unforgiving…especially if you happened to be a woman.
Let me tell you something first: this book is a brick. 656
pages. So, settle in, grab a glass of wine, and dive in if you dare.
I traveled quite a bit while reading this one and literally
had to carry it outside of my backpack because it wouldn’t fit with all my work
stuff. I felt dedicated. Three different
people stopped me in the airport to ask about it. Two people really liked it.
One woman said she got bored with the “second story.” And honestly? I can
understand that.
But don’t dismiss this book because of its length. It is definitely a commitment, but once I settled in, I found myself surprisingly invested in the story.
I feel like I am constantly being reminded of the place
women have held in this world, and how much, depending on the circumstances, it
sometimes feels like we haven’t progressed nearly as far as we should have. We
have progressed. Obviously. But sometimes it feels situational…depending on the
decade, the circumstances, the money in your bank account, the color of your
skin, and, unfortunately, whether the people around you have decided you
deserve a seat at the table.
Stockett wrote The Help, which, if I remember
correctly, felt much more centered on race and the realities of Black women
working in White households. The Calamity Club feels more focused on
poverty, class, gender, and the lengths women will go to when the systems
around them leave them very few options.
And then there is the actual story, which, I have to admit,
occasionally required me to suspend my disbelief.
Two women start a brothel in the home of a well-respected
woman in a very small, very gossipy Southern town in the 1930s.
I’m sorry…but that would have been shut down immediately.
Based on what I know about the 1930s, there is no way an
entire town would just casually allow this to happen. And yet, in this story,
people either overlook it, participate in it, or somehow manage to convince
themselves they don't know about it.
The women are constantly running out of money, but
apparently there is one business model that remains recession-proof:
Sex sells. Literally.
And while some of the plot required me to just go with it, I
really appreciated the women at the center of this story. They are resourceful,
stubborn, complicated, and, above all, determined. There is something I will
always appreciate about an “okay, this is a terrible situation…so what are we
going to do about it?” kind of woman.
The story is told through two alternating narrators whose
lives couldn't begin farther apart.
Birdie Calhoun is a practical, plain-spoken young woman who
travels to Oxford with one goal: convince her well-married socialite sister,
Frances, to help save the family farm from foreclosure. It seems simple enough…until
Birdie arrives and discovers that Frances's picture-perfect life is built on a
foundation of secrets that could shatter everything.
Then there is Meg LeFleur, eleven years old, sharp as a
tack, and one of the so-called “unadoptable” girls at the Lafayette County
Orphan Asylum. Meg has learned not to count on anyone. Her mother disappeared
on Christmas Eve and never came back, and the world has given her very little
reason to believe anyone is coming to save her.
But then Birdie crosses her path.
And slowly, their lives begin to intertwine.
As Birdie digs deeper into her sister's troubles and Meg
navigates one impossible situation after another, their stories begin to braid
together in unexpected ways. Add Charlie, a woman pushed to the absolute edge
of what she can endure, and a bold, unconventional plan begins to take shape,
drawing in a remarkable network of women, both Black and White, who are simply
trying to survive a system designed to work against them.
What follows is part social commentary, part found-family
story, part Southern adventure, and, at times, completely ridiculous in the
best possible way.
Stockett pulls back the curtain on the hypocrisy of
“respectable” society while showing the quiet, defiant courage of women living
on its margins.
But my favorite part of the book wasn't the brothel, the
secrets, or even the Calamity Club itself.
It was Meg and Tom.
Tom becomes Meg's adoptive father, and one of their rituals
is walking to the lake every day so he can teach her how to swim.
One day, Meg asks him if he can hear the dogs at night.
He tells her that the dogs were once released to track
runaway slaves.
The story stays with her. Later, when she considers running
away because she is afraid she will be sent back to the orphanage, she worries
that the dogs will find her and bring her back.
As she packs her things, believing she is headed back to the
orphanage, she thinks:
“I guess that is about the best you can ask for in life. To
find the person who will keep the dogs from getting you.”
That line...
Because maybe that really is one of the greatest gifts in
life.
To love and be loved.
To find the person who will stand between you and the dogs.
We all deserve that kind of love. And, maybe even more
importantly, we all have the opportunity to be that person for someone else…to
make someone feel safe, seen, wanted, and loved.
Tom also holds tightly to his copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This
Side of Paradise. The book becomes a quiet symbol of his life, his
ambitions, and ultimately, his memory.
When Meg is preparing to leave, she sneaks into his office
intending to take the book with her. But when she opens it and sees his name
and the date he received it, she changes her mind.
Instead, she adds her own name.
Margot Louise Lefleur was here, October 7, 1933.
And somehow, that felt like the magic of The Calamity
Club.
It wasn't just a story about survival.
It was about leaving a mark.
About finding your people. About being remembered. About
building a family in places where you didn't expect to find one.
It built a community…messy, complicated, imperfect, and
deeply human.
And maybe that's what stayed with me most after all 656
pages.
Sometimes the greatest thing we can do for another person is
simply make sure they know they were here.
