{"id":464613,"date":"2026-05-24T09:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T09:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/464613\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T09:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T09:57:11","slug":"the-help-author-kathryn-stockett-on-being-fired-by-her-publisher-and-feeling-like-a-failure-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/464613\/","title":{"rendered":"The Help author Kathryn Stockett on being fired by her publisher and feeling like a failure \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathryn Stockett is on a video call from her home state<\/a> of Mississippi talking about the success of her first novel<\/a> The Help and the challenge of following up a debut that has sold more than 15 million copies. <\/p>\n

Not only did The Help spend more than 100 weeks on The New York Times<\/a> bestseller list, it was later turned into an Oscar-winning movie. The novel also famously came in for a lot of criticism which made her difficult-second-novel syndrome even more acute. She got there eventually, though, with The Calamity Club, a sprawling, 632-page historical novel about a group of plucky, resourceful women in Depression-era United States.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the obvious question, but here goes: why did it take so long? \u201cWell,\u201d she begins, in her charming southern lilt. \u201cI was on tour for four or five years with The Help and then the movie and speaking engagements. I\u2019m not the kind of person who can tour and write at the same time; they use very different sides of the brain. And once I started I had a lot of false starts. I had told myself I was going to write a very short, simple story that didn\u2019t raise the kind of criticisms The Help did. I was writing cautiously and as a result I wasn\u2019t happy with what I was putting on paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Help told the story of black maids and a young white writer in 1960s Mississippi who secretly collaborate to expose the racism and inequalities of segregated Southern society. It was partly inspired by Stockett\u2019s own experience as a \u201ca spoilt white child\u201d growing up in Jackson, Mississippi in a family that employed a black maid. <\/p>\n

Criticism of the book included questions about whether a white author could authentically represent the voices and experiences of black women who lived through segregation and domestic service in the Jim Crow South. The controversy became a broader discussion about who gets to tell stories, a debate that resurfaced again six years ago when Jeanine Cummins\u2019s American Dirt came in for similar criticism<\/a>. By then, Stockett was deep into The Calamity Club. With expectations high and criticism of her debut still very much alive in her mind, she was struggling. <\/p>\n

\u201cI guess the only way I know how to describe it is when you write your first novel, it\u2019s just you, alone in a room \u2026 you don\u2019t have any expectations of yourself. And with the second book, every once in a while, those readers and those critics will creep into your office and stare back at you when you are trying to do the very thing that you need to be alone for. At times it was paralysing. But the criticism wasn\u2019t enough to stop me from writing a second book.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just had to admit to myself that it\u2019s impossible to write about Mississippi, especially Mississippi in the 1930s, and not write about hypocrisy and racism and sexism, and all of the absurdities that come along with that. So once I came to terms with that, the book really kind of took off.\u201d <\/p>\n

After years of reflecting on the controversy, she is clear about her position. \u201cThe people were not looking at the story as a whole, they were fixating on the fact that I\u2019m a white woman writing in a black voice. But I have no regrets about writing The Help, I have to admit that,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat I was told, and I believe this to be true, is that The Help started conversations that otherwise would not have been had. Conversations between white people and black people who were not talking about race for a long time. America was not talking about race. And it was still very much an issue. And so it started some conversations and it made some people uncomfortable and angry. But no regrets here.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Tara Brady: The Help arrives as though the culture wars never happenedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

By 2019 she was still under contract with Putnam, an imprint of Penguin Random House, the company that published The Help. She had been making progress with the book that would become The Calamity Club but then came a professional shock. \u201cAfter 10 years, when I still hadn\u2019t finished this novel, even though I was well on my way, they fired me.\u201d The news was given through her agent. (In a statement to The New York Times, a spokesperson for Putnam said the contract was cancelled \u201cby mutual agreement\u201d.)<\/p>\n

Writers are not public speakers, or at least this one is not. I\u2019d rather be in my PJs, being a dork, in front of my computer, writing things that crack me up<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Kathryn Stockett<\/p>\n

\u201cI just felt like a failure,\u201d she says. \u201cI guess I can say in hindsight, thank God it happened because I wasn\u2019t getting the kind of editorial support I needed. Maybe if I was a real writer, then I could write a book without a good editor. But I\u2019m not that kind of writer. I need someone who I can call every few days or once a month and play around with these ideas … especially with a book like The Calamity Club with so many different plots.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she floundered, an agent friend introduced her to Julie Grau of independent publisher Speigel & Grau. She credits Grau as the catalyst she needed to finish The Calamity Club. \u201cWhen an editor really supports you as a writer, man, it\u2019s just magical. Julie is always accessible, she\u2019s a writer\u2019s dream. I can call her up, the person who owns the company, and ask her a question. I could never do that before \u2026 I feel so blessed. I wish other writers who long for that kind of support would go and look at what else is out there.\u201d <\/p>\n

The hugely entertaining book\u2019s two main characters are a spirited and very funny 11-year-old orphan, Meg, and 24-year-old Birdie. \u201cThey\u2019re old souls; they see right through bullshit,\u201d Stockett says. \u201cMeg is in an orphanage and finds herself unadoptable and Birdie has the same kind of stigma. She doesn\u2019t understand the world she lives in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The novel involved a lot of research and when Stockett stumbled on a law passed in Mississippi in 1928, it inspired a significant part of the book\u2019s plot. \u201cThis law legalised the sterilisation of anyone who was deemed \u2018feeble minded\u2019 or anyone with any kind of physical or mental disability. It was legal to sterilise women so that they didn\u2019t populate the state and it just stopped me in my tracks.\u201d She discovered that Mississippi was actually behind the times and that two dozen other states had already passed their own sterilisation laws in the late 1920s. \u201cIt was called the Eugenics Movement and what really blew my mind was that the law in many states was expanded to include what they called promiscuous women.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the book, Birdie forms an unlikely sisterhood by opening a temporary brothel. Did her views on sex work evolve in the writing? \u201cIt\u2019s not my job to pass judgment,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s my job as a writer to show the reader that, in the 1930s, if you didn\u2019t have a man in your life and didn\u2019t have any skills and weren\u2019t lucky enough to land a low-paying job in a shop or in an office your body was pretty much all you had. And I wanted the reader to understand that. I don\u2019t want the reader to judge either. It\u2019s more about just exploring the limitations of women in 1933 \u2026 there\u2019s this sense that these women had to fend for themselves and take matters into their own hands. There are no men coming to save these women.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Author Emma Donoghue: \u2018I grew up very normal, yet had this secret side that I thought everyone would consider foul\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Raised in Mississippi, Stockett studied English at the University of Alabama. In her 20s she moved to New York, encouraged by her childhood friend Tate Taylor<\/a> who was working there. (In a nice plot twist, the film-maker made his directorial debut with Stockett\u2019s The Help.) She spent those early New York years working in the publishing industry before writing The Help, which received 60 rejection letters before publication. \u201cThey are just pieces of paper; you have to carry on,\u201d she says, when I ask how she dealt with that. <\/p>\n

How does she feel about all the upcoming publicity for the book? \u201cI\u2019m terrified,\u201d she says. \u201cCan I admit that?\u201d Recently, she spoke at an event to honour Octavia Spencer, who received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the movie version of The Help. \u201cIt went fine but it wasn\u2019t enough training. I\u2019m getting better, I think. Writers are not public speakers, or at least this one is not. I\u2019d rather be in my PJs, being a dork, in front of my computer, writing things that crack me up, that hopefully, crack somebody else up too\u201d. <\/p>\n

She is looking forward to coming back to Dublin as part of the tour. She\u2019s been here several times. Her daughter Lila studied creative writing in Trinity and last year, aged just 22, married an Irish man she met while studying here. \u201cWhen she told me she was getting married, my first thought was that she was knocked up. She wasn\u2019t,\u201d Stockett says with typical dry humour. <\/p>\n

She is open about her own past relationships. At 30, she married Lila\u2019s father Keith Rogers and was divorced at 40. She was subsequently in a long relationship with writer Wyatt Williams, which ended badly. He was 16 years younger than Stockett while her current partner is \u201conly 11 years younger than me so I\u2019m moving up\u201d. Is he also a writer? \u201cNo more writers,\u201d the 57-year-old says emphatically. \u201cJust ordinary civilians who have normal jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her daughter wants to be a novelist. Stockett jokes that between her writing aspirations and the youthful marriage \u201cit\u2019s like two mistakes in one\u201d. What\u2019s it like having a daughter who wants to pursue the same precarious profession? \u201cWe don\u2019t talk about it,\u201d Stockett says. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of the elephant in the room, because she doesn\u2019t read my writing, and I\u2019m not allowed to read hers.\u201d I express surprise that her daughter had never read The Help but she points out that her daughter was only a young girl when the book was first published. \u201cIt\u2019s totally fine with me,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Stockett has homes in New York\u2019s East Village and Mississippi. I suggest that with the sales of The Help, she could have lived quite comfortably without ever writing another book. She balks at this idea. \u201cI don\u2019t know any novelists that write with the pure intention of, \u2018I\u2019m just going to make a quick buck.\u2019 The point is not the money. The point of why we write is to answer these questions that are kind of bubbling up inside of us, and just because we wrote one thing doesn\u2019t mean that those questions are going to stop. It\u2019s my destiny, I guess, to keep writing, whether anyone reads it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kathryn Stockett will discuss The Calamity Club (Penguin) at the International Literature Festival Dublin, on Wednesday, June 3rd. ilfdublin.com <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kathryn Stockett is on a video call from her home state of Mississippi talking about the success of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,631,61,60,12167,115,174027,125724],"class_list":["post-464613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-for-you","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-new-york-times","tag-united-states","tag-women-s-writing","tag-women-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}