Oxford roots run deep in review of The Calamity Club, Stockett event sold out

Kathryn Stockett’s return is already a local event before she steps to the microphone. Her reading and signing at the Powerhouse in Oxford is sold out for Thursday, May 7, at 5:30 p.m., but Square Books said pre-signed first editions of The Calamity Club were still available.

That matters in Oxford because the book is not simply being sold here. It is set here. The Calamity Club, published May 5, 2026, places readers in Oxford, Mississippi, in 1933, when the Great Depression was tightening its grip and Prohibition was fading from view. The novel’s central trio includes Meg Lefleur, an 11-year-old orphan living at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, along with Birdie Calhoun, described in publisher copy as unmarried and outspoken, and Charlie, whose lives collide as they try to improvise, survive and rely on one another.

That geography gives the story a built-in resonance for Lafayette County readers. Oxford is not used as background decoration here. It is the place where the book’s emotional pressure builds, where the county orphan asylum sits in the middle of the narrative, and where questions of class, survival and dignity play out against the lived memory of Mississippi’s past.

The setting also carries hard historical echoes. Mississippi passed a sterilization law in 1928, and historical records show the law led to sterilizations in the early 1930s. The Mississippi Encyclopedia says the law remained on the books for decades, with a 1984 amendment removing epilepsy from the listed conditions. That backdrop gives Stockett’s Depression-era Oxford a sharper edge than a simple period tale.

The local venue adds another layer. The Powerhouse Community Arts Center was built in 1928 as Oxford’s power plant and became an arts center in 2008 under the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council. Square Books, founded in 1979, said it hosts more than 150 author events each year, but a sold-out Stockett appearance at the Powerhouse still stands out because of her name recognition and the novel’s Oxford-specific setting.

Stockett’s first novel, The Help, has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, and The Calamity Club arrives after a 17-year gap between novels. In a recent interview, Stockett said the book was inspired by a photograph of a young oyster shucker named Rosie, a detail that helps explain the novel’s grounded, visual feel.

For Oxford and Lafayette County, the combination is rare: a nationally known author, a sold-out hometown appearance and a new novel that places the county itself at the center of the story.