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At the beginning of March I finally finished Grady Hendrix's, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires and I've been in a reading slump ever since. Yes, I'm still listening to The Toll by Neil Shustermann, with my son and I'm also reading a page or two of other books that are related to research or things I had on the hook before finishing SBCGSV. I can't seem to shake this book. I think it's a matter of coming here and exorcising the intrusive thoughts from my mind. Hang onto your hats, I'm going to be all over the place with this review.
Originally I rated this book a 3.75 out of 5 stars. You have to understand that for me, a 3.5 rating is trending upward. It's in "I really liked this" or it was above "good" territory. Yet in the week or so following I found myself referring to the book in conversation and also writing about it several times in my journal entries. At this point I've recorded a very disjointed unhinged book review that I may or may not put up on YouTube via my old knitting channel. In the end I've bumped it all the way up to a 4.25.
Walk with me. This book had layers so let's start from the top. First of all let's talk about how The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, as a title gives a vibe that the book absolutely does not live up to. This title has an ironic lightness or cheekiness to it that is absolutely nowhere present in the book. As a reader I was waiting for any of those few themes to reveal themselves as I went along and it never happened! I even went back and read several of the featured taglines reviewers advertised on the book to see if I was trippin'. The majority of the reviewer taglines really do come across as somewhat "light". Did I read a different book? Have times changed so drastically in five years? One critic literally called the book funny. That description just leaves me flabbergasted.
Hendrix does an amazing job of depicting suburban life within an old fashioned southern neighborhood. In fact, I could distinctly place either one of my husband's grandmothers- albeit younger versions of themselves, tucked away on their familiar streets in Macon, Georgia with pristine clarity. The lifestyle there, in the South, a lifestyle heavily beholden to decorum and the proper ways to do things are clear conversations and behaviours I've personally witnessed and have had amongst my own family and friends. The author also accurately captured the feeling of social standards of the time (90's) and the place (middle class South). For example, I was completely gagged in the beginning when Patricia, the main character, was initially being attacked. She actually hesitates to scream. I mean her mind literally processes all the out of place data happening during the attack and she still gives a second thought of worry to causing an unnecessary attention grabbing disturbance in the middle of the night. While. She's. Being. Attacked. He really clocked it with that because Like, girl, what?
And maybe that's the type of "funny" the one reviewer was getting at. It was in fact, horrifically funny in the sense of outlining the very real and palpable absurdity that makes folks even worse victims than they have to be. The author nails the pressure of societal norms as a life stealing theme throughout the book. His flawless depiction of niceties and nastiness, how he reveals the initially silent implications of staying in your place as a wife, as a mother, as a white, a black, a poor. He perfectly displays the habit of not saying the bad part out loud until the gloves absolutely have to come off. It all had me in a chokehold.
Grady's skill at gross horror description/depiction is oh so very strong and should not be underrated. He had me cringing and doing lamaze through some of the most unusual places in the book. I think the gross way he describes things at times of low tension keeps the macabre tone and goth of the book.
Speaking of gothic, as I've been studying Faulkner, I've been diving a little deeper into what that even means modern day. Gothic in terms of literature has evolved immensely since the Mary Shelly and Dracula days of book publishing. This story absolutely qualifies for modern southern gothic. With its showcase in the literal and figurative societal decay of the community, secrets of a violent inescapable past that's all in the placed in the sticky hot setting of the South.
What's a mystery to me is how clear it is that the author did extensive vampire research for the book but how very little of that lore or even explanation of the lore shows up in the actual work. As a matter of fact, as I was crashing out looking for more information in the days after reading the book I came upon a podcast series the Grady Hendrix produced that's all about vampires. (There's twelve episodes that span across the "vampisphere". Check out Super Scary Haunted Homeschool. I found it intriguing). But for all that work, where did it get us? There are moments in the book that could have done with a smidge more explanation. When Patricia is in the attic and the vampire is speaking to her, how did she live through that? I suspect that maybe he was trying to compel her but I don't know that and it totally took me out of the story trying to figure out WTF. Another example would be how throughout the book the author makes it a point to highlight the invitations that Vampire James receives into the homes of various families in the community. In the final chapters of the book James does elude to them all having invited him in freely but there's no distinct, "Ya'll could have rescinded my invitation," moment; it's all up for puzzle piecing together on your own.
I'm conflicted over this strategy. The compulsion to trust readers to be smart is understandable but I think just a few clarifying/distinct explanations would have made things less grey and kept me glued to the story. The agreeable side of my thoughts feel that clarifying would make the book more commercial or formulaic in its delivery. When I visualise inserting one of those anecdotes- "how to slay a vampire", I'm not sure how it doesn't go into being kitcsh. This book totally came across as a realistic vampire novel. Even when the main character's mother in law appears in an apparition, reality was not a bridge too far- my belief was co-signed and suspended. So logically, the author's choice makes sense if he wasn't wanting to write kitcshy "guide" or bring that type of Buffy irony starkly into the story but my brain certainly rebelled against this form of storytelling.
Even now, I still can't believe I scored the book so highly while not finding a single character within it's pages likeable. I'd say the closest character would be Ms. Greene. It's a testament to the storytelling. Every. single. character. was annoying and flawed. Let me tell you, the family dynamic between Patricia and her husband and kids was absolute trash, chile. There was zero depth there. Whenever Patricia needed them to come through for her on any level whatsoever they all fail both spectacularly and consistently. It's lowkey warranted though when you peer a little closer. Pat's a stay at home mom and she is 100% checked out from her kids and who they are as teens now. I think she's still stuck in the sweet nostalgia of them being small and having those early elementary relationships. Pat's son is legit a neo-nazi in the making and they're all so super casual about his indoctrination. I guess there goes some of that "funny" again, right? And the slow way Hendrix reveals her husband in the beginning as just being aloof to then he progress seamlessly to what he always was! He's an active, bonafide misogynist. More funny. Patty's desperation and loneliness within the relationship is at first palpable and then after the first half the book is simply invisible.
Mr. Hendrix- Grady, gonna call him Grady at this point, really just hits it all; racism, domestic violence, sexual abuse, rape, ageism, sexism. He taps the surface of so many hard topics in a way that requires the reader to dig deeper into themselves and reflect...hopefully. Yet the actual exploration or expansion into the topics is never fully actualised. They are mentions and plot points and I can't decide if that's frustrating or genius.
Finally when we get down to business-to the epic showdown, our main character comes up with the plan. The plan isn't ever revealed until game time, which I liked. However, it's everyone else that executes it! I disliked that. I wanted more from the main character after having witnessed her be so apathetic the spanse of the book. I'm talking, Pat literally wakes up and it's all done and it's largely done by the marginalised black housecleaner the bookclub bailed on in the beginning of the story no less!There are thoughts and themes here but I'll just leave it at Mrs. Green, the housekeeper/caretaker, was about that life!
Afterwards the final resolution feels a lot like Patricia is mourning... the vampire! It struck me in the end how the vampire is finally destroyed but so is all of their lives- conceptually. In order to destroy this very bad thing that was quite literally a blood sucking cancer, they all had to lose the comfortable parts of their lives. It took the whole book for them to even make the acknowledgment that things were dire, things were dangerous. Its resounding that the resolution is literally them living with the consequences of cutting out the very thing that propped them up within society because their values were toxic all along. Very interesting.
I enjoyed the book though clearly I'm ranting. As a person pursuing writing I walked away wondering if I could ever do this with my own work. This work evoked so much within me while I read and long after I finished. Half the time when I write I'm not sure if I'm connecting any dots or if it's all just a giant massed ball of chaosed thought.
Have any of ya'll read this book? What did you think of it? Have I taken it all too serious? Over the course of several years I had so many false starts with this one. I'm so glad I finally got to it. High marks for making me think Grady.
