A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci
It took New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci more than a decade to write what may be his best, and most personal, story to date — and as someone who has sold more than 150 million copies of his novels worldwide in 45 languages over the span of his 49-book career, that’s no easy feat.
The idea for A Calamity of Souls, out today, appeared shortly after Baldacci’s mother passed away. It’s a raw story, set in the tumultuous year of 1968 in Southern Virginia, where a duo of white and Black lawyers goes up against an unfair system to defend their wrongfully-accused Black defendants of murder.
The book harkens back to Baldacci’s earlier work in which lawyers featured prominently, but in this racially-charged courtroom drama, two things are evident: Baldacci remains at the top of his game, and A Calamity of Souls was not an easy book for him to write, despite his unparalleled skill.
“I spent a long time on this book,” he says, in an interview with BookTrib. “I wasn’t even sure I was going to finish it, but I knew it was important for me to write.”
Part of the resistance, Baldacci says, is that he wasn’t sure the story he wanted to tell would resonate anymore. The other hesitation was that he hadn’t written anything autobiographical before — and there’s a whole lot of Baldacci and his family in this book.
“I didn’t know if I was prepared to lay all of that on the line,” he says. “But you only go around this planet once, and I knew I really needed to go for it. So last year I focused on it, because I wanted to get it exactly right.”
No question, he does. The book follows Jack Lee, a white lawyer from Freeman County, Virginia, who decides to represent Jerome Washington, a Black man charged with brutally killing an elderly and wealthy white couple. Jack quickly realizes he’s in over his head, and so in an effort to sway the odds a little more in their favor, he teams up with Desiree DuBose, a Black lawyer from Chicago who has devoted her life to furthering the causes of equality for everyone.
The two could not be a more unlikely pair.
“There’s a lot of me in Jack,” Baldacci says, with a nod toward his former career as a lawyer. “He’s older, but his childhood is a lot like mine in that I grew up in the 50s, 60s, and 70s and felt the world in the way it was constructed was perfectly fine. I lived in a bubble. But my parents took me to the library every week, and through books, we meet far more people than we will meet in our real life — and you realize, the world you grew up in is not the world as it should be.”
It’s a hard lesson for Jack, who prior to taking on Jerome’s case, has never done anything to push against racism. Desiree, on the other hand, is primed for the fight.
“The finest lawyer in the book is a Black woman,” Baldacci says. “I grew up in a time period where women were treated as second-class citizens, and Desiree’s character symbolizes all the women I grew up with as a child who had missed opportunities. This is what could have been.”
That dynamic makes for a rocky partnership at the start of the book. Baldacci knew the two wouldn’t get along at first, and the sharp-witted dialogue between them creates the kind of banter that keeps you glued to the page as their relationship develops.
“The great thing about human beings is that when the cause is right, collectively we can move mountains,” Baldacci says.
It’s a message for readers, yes, but also for the country as a whole. While the book isn’t necessarily intended to make a political statement, Baldacci picked the year 1968 for significant reasons. It was one of the hardest years in the US’s existence since the Civil War.
“The nation’s soul had been torn apart,” he says. “Martin Luther King was murdered. You had George Wallace running for president on a platform of white supremacy. A lot of people didn’t think the US was going to survive 1968. I wanted to show that while things may look bad now, we’ve been there before and we survived it, because people came together. It’s worth it.”
A Calamity of Souls may not quite stitch the country back together, but Baldacci is proud of the finished work — a book that took ten years to write, more personal editing than any of his previous novels, and careful vetting to ensure his story was both sensitive and accurate.
“I know the ending will be sad and upsetting for some people,” he says. “There were a lot of variations I considered, but I’ve written the story I wanted to write. You have to understand what I was trying to say in this novel — sometimes little steps exact a heavy price.”
It’s a poignant and powerful message delivered with the grace and talent that have become the hallmarks of Baldacci’s work. A Calamity of Souls is another must-read from this master storyteller.
About David Baldacci:
David Baldacci is a global #1 bestselling author, and one of the world’s favorite storytellers. His books are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with 150 million copies sold worldwide. His works have been adapted for both feature film and television. David Baldacci is also the cofounder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America. Still a resident of his native Virginia, he invites you to visit him at DavidBaldacci.com and his foundation at WishYouWellFoundation.org.
