When Birdie Calhoun goes to visit her sister, who married into a wealthy family, she hopes to ask for a small loan for her own family back home. But she encounters dire circumstances that demand choices she would never have dreamed of.
When Birdie Calhoun goes to visit her sister, who married into a wealthy family, she hopes to ask for a small loan for her own family back home. But she encounters dire circumstances that demand choices she would never have dreamed of.
The Great Depression is boiling the life out of everyone.
Birdie Calhoun is luckier than most. For one thing, she’s young and unmarried, which gives her a certain flexibility. And she has taken classes in bookkeeping, so she can gain employment and pick up some small income in 1933, a time when many are coming up empty.
Birdie’s lack of attachment—other than her need to supply a small stream of money for her mother and grandmother—also affords her the freedom to travel. And that’s exactly what she’s doing.
Birdie has packed up her few decent dresses and taken the train from Footley to Oxford, Mississippi, in hopes of asking her younger sister, Frances, for a short-term loan to keep their mother’s home from foreclosure.
However, when Birdie arrives at Idlewilde—the grand Oxford mansion that Frances shares with her banker husband, Rory Tartt, and his mother, Mrs. Viktoria Tartt—she finds that things aren’t as flourishing as Birdie had hoped. So she must stay a while and ease into her request for cash.
Frances, preoccupied with her volunteer work at a local orphanage and fitting into Oxford society, is less-than-thrilled by Birdie’s unannounced visit. So to assuage her sis, Birdie volunteers her bookkeeping skills to the orphanage. And there she meets an intelligent young girl named Meg who is suffering misuse by the orphanage’s chairlady.
Compound those issues with Rory Tartt’s sexual proclivities, his mishandling of the Tartt fortune and his abandonment of his family, and Birdie finds herself in a quandary. What should she do?
Birdie decides she has two choices: She can simply grab her bag, get back on the train and leave Frances and young Meg to their fates, returning home with nothing. Or she can come up with a plan to gain a large lump of money in a time when no one seemingly has a dime.
The way forward will be illegal, dangerous and full of extraordinary risks. But if it succeeds, it could help Birdie, her loved ones, the Tarrts, some women Birdie hasn’t even yet met, and little Meg lay claim to a new life.
Birdie isn’t really a person of faith, though she does attend church in Oxford and meets some giving Christians. However, despite the fact that Oxford seemingly has a church on every corner and everyone in town proclaims they are a “good Christian” most people simply use faith as a façade. In fact, those that we meet are often duplicitous and sometimes hateful.
The Orphan Asylum for girls sports a sign out front welcoming all God’s children. But inside, another posted sign states that they do not accept, quote, “colored, Jews, retarded children, those with leprosy” and several other types of children. Birdie sees that disclaimer and balks.
Someone cries out, “Mother Mary, this is good.” And someone else declares, “You are broker than the Ten Commandments.”
None.
We meet Birdie’s mother and grandmother early on. Both women are loving sorts (though grandmother Mee-maw is also humorously cantankerous).
Viktoria Tarrt is a Southern lady who has known wealth her whole life, and she wallows in the pleasures of the past. And when she learns that the money her late, beloved husband left behind has been squandered by her son, Rory, she is quite confused by the “impossibility” of it all. Eventually, though, as things get worse, Mrs. Tarrt shows herself to be a flexible woman who is even willing to open her home to less privileged (and even unsavory) types for the good of all.
Garnett Pittman is the local Orphan Asylum chairwoman. She actually ran for the position because of one young “orphan” named Meg. Garnett rules the orphanage with an iron fist, letting the “big girls” (girls between the ages of 9 to 12) suffer from poor food and scarce supplies.
Garnett sets up an “opportunity” for big girls who turn 12 to work at a local canning company. (She lies to the girls that they’ll get paid, but any earned money comes back to the orphanage.) Garnett emotionally (and sometimes physically) abuses Meg at every turn. And the chairwoman begins to lobby for higher seats of local authority. She uses her growing power to inflict pain on those she disagrees with or dislikes.
Dr. Welty Pittman is a well-respected doctor who treats the underprivileged and often doesn’t charge for his services. However, we find out that he had an affair with a young woman and sired a child. Welty turned his back on both mother and child as they struggled for money.
Charlie Lefleur is Meg’s single mother who faces extreme hardship during the Great Depression. After Charlie is separated from 11-year-old Meg—and sent to a prison-like camp by Garnett—she struggles to find a way back to her daughter. Charlie eventually teams up with Birdie in the effort.
Tom and Lucille Heidelberg are a couple who adopt Meg. And though Lucille is an alcoholic (drinking heavily despite the fact that the story takes place during Prohibition), Tom is buoyed and heartened by taking on his role as a father. Tom and Meg bond and come to love one another deeply. Meg grows and flourishes in the light of Tom’s attention. Tom is trying to write a book to establish his independence from his wealthy parents and make them proud.
Tom’s parents—Big Tom and Isabelle Heidelberg—come into the story as well. They encourage their son to be the good and hard-working man they know he can be. In the meantime, they’re supplying Tom a house. They are both pleased with the changes that they see fatherhood make in Tom’s life.
There’s not an abundance of foul language in the text but there are uses of the s-word and the words “d–n,” “a–,” along with misuse of both Jesus’ and God’s names (in some instances blending God with “d–n”). In fact, much of that coarse language comes from Meg (though it’s often thought and not spoken).
As mentioned, Lucille is a heavy drinker, and she sneaks illegal bottles of booze into their house. Tom had been a drinker himself, but especially with Meg in the house, he takes pains to stay well clear of any alcohol. Tom repeatedly encourages his wife to stop drinking. Mrs. Tarrt has a large supply of bourbon that she sips (squirrelled away by her late husband before Prohibition). And Birdie sells watered-down bottles of the stuff.
Several different people smoke throughout the story, including Birdie and Frances.
Later in the story, a depressed individual gets blazingly drunk and purposely drowns himself in a lake. A woman is raped and then forcefully sterilized. We hear of a man suffering from the “disease” of “homo-sexuality” who is sent away to a clinic to be cured. We’re told of the painful procedures that took place over five months.
Blacks are often shunned and demeaned in the southern community of Oxford and abused by the law for any small infraction.
Birdie finds herself attracted to a banker who’s going through the process of getting divorced. And even though the 24-year-old Birdie has had no experience with men, she decides to see if a relationship between them is possible. The two kiss and embrace, but Birdie stops them from going further (though she longs for the sexual intimacy).
[Spoiler Warning] On the opposite side of the spectrum, Frances has had past sexual experiences, but she eventually admits that she and Rory aren’t intimate, no matter how hard she tries to entice him. Rory is gay. And there’s evidence that he has had affairs with men while married.
With time, Charlie encourages Birdie (and later Mrs. Tarrt) to take in a special sort of female border. They open a short-lived brothel in the Tarrt mansion. We meet each of the women and get an inside look at the lives of prostitutes in the 1930s (including their slang, medical hazards and common practices). Because Oxford is a college town, carloads of drunken young men show up regularly to the “dance club” Birdie constructed in the Tarrts’ back yard.
One of the prostitutes talks of flying off to be with her female lover.
None.
The Calamity Club is a sweepingly popular novel by Kathryn Stockett, best known for her 2011 book, The Help. This historical fiction creates compelling characters and tells an immersive story that lauds sisterhood, a daily sense of resilience and the desire to work hard and turn something terrible into a new beginning.
That said, this story also includes examinations of great poverty in 1933, child abuse, death by suicide, racism, addiction, coarse language, LGBT themes and prostitution.
This is very much a novel intended for adult readers, and parents of younger potential readers should take note of that.
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After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
