Kathryn Stockett: "They were women who went to the hospital for appendicitis and came out sterilized"

BarcelonaSuccess can be paralyzing. At least it was for Kathryn Stockett (Jackson, 1969). The writer grew up in Mississippi, where she has set her only two novels. Of the first, The help (2009; Criadas y señoras in the Spanish edition by Maeva), she sold 15 million copies and it became an Oscar-winning film. Sixteen years later, she has published El club de les indomables (Columna), translated into Catalan by Núria Parés Sellarès. It has not been an easy process for her to write this story about a group of white women who do whatever it takes to survive during the Great Depression in Mississippi and titled The calamity club in English.

What was the writing process for this second novel like after the success of The help? Was it more difficult?

— Totally. When I wrote the first one, I was living in New York. It was after September 11, 2001, an event that marked us deeply. Our phones were cut off and we were confined to the neighborhood, so I started writing out of pure nostalgia, just for myself, to reconnect with the voices of my homeland. On the other hand, when I sat down to write The Club of the Untamables I was no longer alone in the room: I had the pressure of thousands of readers and critics watching my every move. It was overwhelming and, at times, paralyzing.

It took many years to finish it.

— I spent about five years traveling and promoting The Help. Then I wrote several drafts of the first half that I found very weak; they didn't capture the truth I wanted to tell. I was stuck for about four or five years trying to write a book that would avoid the criticism my previous one had received, until I had to accept reality: if you want to write about Mississippi in the 1930s honestly, you have to talk openly about racism and hypocrisy. There wasn't a moment of a specific spark, but rather a long process to capture a collective feeling rather than a simple plot.

In the novel there are very well-defined characters, like Meg, an eleven-year-old orphan. Was it difficult to narrate such hard facts through the eyes of a child?

— The hardest part wasn't putting myself in the little girl's shoes, but capturing what a mother, Charlie, feels when she suffers wondering if she'll see her daughter again. The feeling of not knowing if your daughter is okay is terrifying and almost inconceivable.

At the other end we have Miss Garnett, the director of the orphanage. She embodies the most conservative values, hypocrisy, and a total lack of empathy. What was the inspiration for creating her?

— The inspiration is the very Mississippi, a deeply conservative state where many people tenaciously defend these values. I wanted to concentrate this entire mentality in a single character to confront it, as I already did with Hilly Holbrook in The Help. The idea that certain people can be excluded from fundamental rights makes me very angry. In the second half of the book, it is better understood where her fury comes from. Meg becomes the perfect target for all her rage.

The novel speaks precisely about the forced sterilization laws that existed in Mississippi in the 1930s. Do you think it is a historical chapter that has been made invisible in the United States?

— Yes, totally. It is estimated that between 70,000 and 80,000 people were forcibly sterilized in the United States, although some activists claim the real figure is much higher. In Mississippi, it has been treated as an insignificant detail because our state has accumulated too many historical atrocities. Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer coined a very graphic term in the 1950s and 60s: "Mississippi appendectomy." These were Black women who went to the hospital for an appendix operation and came out sterilized without their consent. It was a horrifying weapon of social control over women's bodies, a way to cleanse society of those they considered "undesirables".

How was this reality documented?

— I looked for many real testimonies, but what helped me the most were the period photographs; history is transmitted with great force through images. For example, I extracted Meg's gaze and attitude from a famous Lewis Hine photograph about child labor. She was a girl of about nine years old, with blond hair and light eyes, who had been working for two years in a fish cannery on the west coast. Her expression did not evoke pity or ask for compassion; she looked fixedly at the photographer as if to say: "And now, what will you do with this?" That dignity guided me.

There is a very strong visual contrast in the novel: a clandestine brothel in a large stately mansion. What intention is hidden behind it?

— It is a metaphor for the culture of the Southern United States. Southerners have a very marked tendency to put on a facade of courtesy, we always have to have a smile and good manners to make everyone feel comfortable, but this almost never represents what we really think or feel inside. There are many people who mouth Christian values, but then do not practice basic kindness. The mansion represents this model appearance, while behind it there are prostitutes.

Likewise, to get by, the women in the book decide on a business that exploits the female body.

— These women did what was necessary to survive in an era when they had no education, few job opportunities, or the support of a man or family. In that context of crisis, using their own bodies was the only way out for many of them.

In the novel, the men don't help much. They are quite mediocre.

— Yes, it is done with intention. I have no problem with men, I have a fantastic one waiting for me. I wanted to tell a story where male characters could be dispensed with when acting, to see how women are capable of uniting, organizing, and solving a serious problem on their own.

Although set in the past, the novel resonates as a warning about the danger of losing hard-won rights.

— Exactly. I don't have the ability to write contemporary novels or analyze the present with clarity, but I can travel a hundred years back and show how hard our mothers and grandmothers had to fight to bring us to where we are today. Looking at the past reminds us that history repeats itself and that no right can be taken for granted.

He has published two novels quite critical of Mississippi, the place where he grew up. Has he had problems?

— I hope to have it, otherwise I would not have done my job well.

Returning to the writing process. I don't think he had an easy time with the publisher either.

— It was a very painful process. Because I took so long to write, after ten years of contract, the publishing house suddenly terminated it. I felt like an absolute failure and suffered a lot because I am the financial support of my family. But after a few months of lamenting, I started working with more anger and dedication than ever. A friend anonymously sent the manuscript, without saying who the author was, to editor Judy Clain. She read it, loved it, and for the first time in a long time, I felt less alone. Despite it being a depressing time, the story conveys optimism and I myself was having fun and laughing while I wrote it. I just hope the reader receives this same energy.