THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES by Grady Hendrix (Quirk Books, April 2020) Hardcover, 404 pages. ISBN # 1683691431 / 9781683691433
Fried Green Tomatoes and "Steel Magnolias" meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.
Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.
But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she—and her book club—are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.
My Five-Star review on the Goodreads website . . . . .
I can't think of a more appropriate publisher for the wild imaginative fiction of Grady Hendrix than one that's named Quirk Books. Indeed.
I love a good narrative hook that pulls me into the story and holds my interest from that point forward. Sometimes they occur in the first sentence or paragraph. Other times after one or two chapters. The longest I can recall before a "hook" grabbed me was almost fifty pages in. This marks the first time that the "hook" occurred before the first chapter, even before the prologue - - but in the author's note that precedes the prologue.
Hendrix writes about his childhood in South Carolina, his thoughts about his mother (and all mothers) then and now, and how it inspired him to write this book: "With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom." Now, that's a hook! And a book I definitely want to read.
By Chapter 2 I'm already feeling sorry for the plight of Patricia and empathizing with her situation. Mother of a teenage daughter and an elementary school son, married to a career-climbing psychiatrist, and reluctantly agreeing to care for his declining and dementia-plagued ailing mother and take her into their home. She feels overwhelmed in repetitive mundane tasks as a housekeeper, unappreciated, and unfulfilled. Hendrix is so good at writing the early scenes of Patricia's sad home life and her encounters with the womens' book clubs that I could actually be satisfied with following this story entirely. By the time he introduces the darker elements in Part Two and hints at more weirdness to come I'm entirely pulled into this story and ready to read as much as I can as soon as I can.
I love how the chapters are grouped into various sections with timelines and labeled after whatever Patricia's book club is reading at that time. Part One is "Cry, the Beloved Country", followed by Part Two "Helier Skelter" and so on.
In Part Two the alleged vampire, new neighbor James Harris, is introduced and he seems friendly, agreeable, polite, grateful, and essentially harmless - although suffering from a light sensitivity condition. In Part Three, "The Bridges Of Madison County", Patricia is comfortable enough with him to invite him to the monthly book club.
Up to this point, I'm a little disappointed that there is not more horror at play in the story, but perfectly willing to accept it as a humorous (but not ha-ha funny) take on disenchanted American housewives in the Deep South in the 1990's. There's only a little menace introduced when an attempted house break-in occurs but halted before anything really bad could happen.
The story takes a darker turn in the next section, "The Stranger Beside Me", when a home invasion of a quite different sort does occur, with horrific results. The fact that I had been lulled into a sense of complacency by the story made this event even more dramatic. Ugh. Hendrix really knows how to create the jump scares.
By the time the longish "The Stranger Beside Me" section ends, the book has made a definite transition from mundanity to melancholy caused by an inability to correct a dangerous situation. Patricia and book club friend Grace have uncovered the deadly secret behind James Harris' nocturnal activities. No longer just an interesting portrait of boring suburban living in the South of the 1990's the book takes on a darker, more disturbing and eerie tone. Hendrix pulls it off smoothly. Not many writers have the ability to change direction mid-book and bring the reading audience along with them, but I'm gladly following. I'm more invested in this story than before. By the time the "Psycho" section ends, I'm very concerned for Patricia's welfare and the hard decisions she will have to make.
The next section "Clear And Present Danger" jumps ahead three years as things seem to have settled down after Patricia's setback. However, the tension builds, the story gets more dangerous and by the end of this section is absolutely frightening. The horror has emerged in all its' nasty aspects.
I read the final 100 pages much faster than before. My attention was riveted on the story. I don't want to give anything away, just to say that it was very satisfying in several ways. I was especially moved by the wrap-up and reflection in the final chapter.
Hendrix puts his own spin on the vampire mythos. While James Harris can be viewed as a sort of "gentleman vampire", and much like other novels where vampires are portrayed as kindly or sympathetic in spite of their need for blood he shows his true nature in the end. I thought his explanation for his "condition" was especially inventive, as well as the method of stopping him. An outstanding work of fiction.
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