The Calamity Club

'Smart, funny, and driven by unforgettable characters ... a must-read' Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry

'A rip-roaring adventure of found family, complex sisterhood and tested moral compasses' Sunday Times

'Pure hell-raising entertainment' New York Times

'The biggest publishing event of the year' Mirror

'Exquisite storytelling ... a joyful, heartbreaking, heartwarming read. I loved it so much' Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things


“You give a girl a taste of fresh air and then you take it away—she’ll grow fierce and wild to get it back.”

Oxford, Mississippi, 1933.

Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one.

Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the 'unadoptable' girls at the town’s orphanage, where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed.

When she meets Birdie, a young woman who has come to Oxford determined to remind her socialite sister of the impoverished family she left behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future.

But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie begins to suspect her sister’s charmed life may be founded on a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose.

Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women.

But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences …

Kathryn Stockett was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Alabama with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City, where she worked in magazine publishing and marketing for nine years. The Help is her first novel.