Kathryn Stockett on The Calamity Club: Sisterhood in the American South

On this episode, we're joined by author Kathryn Stockett to discuss her new novel, The Calamity Club, which follows a group of remarkable women as they confront the reactionary social, cultural, and economic forces that defined much of the American South during the Great Depression.

It has been 17 years since Stockett published The Help, one of the defining publishing successes of its era, and she shares with us the anxiety she felt returning to this world after writing a wildly successful, albeit controversial, literary phenomenon. She explains why, this time around, she attempted—and failed—to write a follow-up book that was less likely to become a cultural lightning rod.

For all of The Calamity Club's stifling Mississippi heat and small-town prejudice, the predominant feeling readers are left with is joy. That's because this sweeping story is leavened by the voices of two of the funniest and most fully realised characters you're likely to encounter in any book this year.

Hosted by Ryan Edgington. Produced by Lily Woods and Matt Hennessey.