{"id":598092,"date":"2026-08-28T00:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/598092\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T00:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:10:13","slug":"kathryn-stocketts-friends-told-her-to-find-a-new-profession-after-the-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/598092\/","title":{"rendered":"Kathryn Stockett\u2019s Friends Told Her to \u2018Find a New Profession\u2019 After \u2018The Help.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seventeen years after \u201cThe Help,\u201d Kathryn Stockett is back with \u201cThe Calamity Club,\u201d a bestselling novel also set in Mississippi.<\/p>\n

On the Aug. 27 episode of \u201cOpen Book with Jenna<\/a>,\u201d Stockett spoke about her long journey to the followup \u2014 so long, in fact, that her friends advised her to \u201cfind a new profession.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Help\u201d was a hit on a scale that authors dream about. After receiving over 60 rejections from literary agents, Stockett finally got her break, and that Mississippi-set story led to a publishing phenomenon. Published in 2009, the book sold millions of copies and inspired an Oscar-nominated movie.<\/p>\n

But it also attracted tremendous controversy. Stockett\u2019s first novel, in part, followed Black domestic workers at a house in Mississippi, and she said she modeled their voices on the women she knew growing up in her family\u2019s employ.<\/p>\n

The book and movie sparked a dialogue about race, representation and who should tell whose stories, with star Viola Davis ultimately saying<\/a> she regretted being part of the film. <\/p>\n

After publishing her controversial juggernaut, Stockett retreated from the public eye and started working on her next book. And worked. And worked. <\/p>\n

Stockett told Jenna she was committed to writing \u201ca really short book that didn\u2019t draw the same criticisms that \u2018The Help\u2019 did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018I\u2019m not going to stir the pot with this one,\u2019\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

But the book wasn\u2019t coming along, she said, because she \u201cwasn\u2019t telling the truth\u201d in her writing. <\/p>\n

As the time wore on, Stockett said the people in her life became concerned she was wasting her time. \u201cPeople started looking at me. My friends started to say, \u2018Kitty, I think you need to move on. Maybe either find a new profession or start working on something else. This is too long to work on the same project,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Then, in 2019, Stockett was dropped by her publisher Penguin, and she went from being a literary Cinderella story back to being almost as unmoored as when she started.<\/p>\n

But she \u201crefused to give up.\u201d In fact, she said the firing was \u201cliberating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something scrappy inside of me. I think part of that has to do with coming from Mississippi. If you kick me, I\u2019m going to come back stronger and kick back harder. I think that\u2019s what I did,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

It was only when Stockett moved back to Mississippi that she could start on the more \u201chonest\u201d version of the story, she said, and it \u201cstarted to blossom.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move came in tandem with a breakthrough in the research process. Stockett learned about sterilization laws across the U.S. that prevented people from having children and according to Stockett was a means to \u201ccleanse society of these so-called \u2018undesirables.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shocked me so much that I thought, \u2018I got to write about the women who endured that,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the women who had that threat looming over them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting book, \u201cThe Calamity Club,\u201d is an uproarious, action-packed, 656-page book about two outcast women and their quest to find a girl who ends up in an orphanage. The book also weaves in the topics that Stockett was afraid to broach after \u201cThe Help.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to write an honest story in Mississippi about women, you have to include hypocrisy, racism, sexism and all the absurdities that come along with it,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seventeen years after \u201cThe Help,\u201d Kathryn Stockett is back with \u201cThe Calamity Club,\u201d a bestselling novel also set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-598092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}