The Southern Book Club's Guide review by Tillie Holmes

A Southern housewife finds herself under threat of vampiric nature in this tense and fraught new novel, by the master of horror, Grady Hendrix. In his own words, Hendrix ‘wanted to write a book in which he pitted Dracula against his mum. As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight’.

Having given up her career as a nurse in favour of her husband’s aspiring career as a doctor, Patricia Campbell feels limited by her life as a busy and overlooked housewife. When she makes friends with a group of women in the neighbourhood, their book-club meetings soon become the highlight of her month. As fans of true crime, they delight in their private pass-time of which their husbands would certainly not approve of. That is until one night when Patricia is attacked outside her home by an elderly neighbour, and thus her quiet life begins to unravel.

Enter James Harris: new to town, Harris is the nephew of the neighbour involved in the traumatic attack. Intelligent, handsome, and polite, the mysterious James is at first a tempting distraction to every-day life. But then, children on the other side of town start to go missing, Patricia’s mother-in-law is brutally killed in their home under bizarre circumstances, and Patricia realises that the charming new neighbour isn’t at all what he appears to be. She sets out to convince someone – anyone – to help her rid their community of this monster, but James has embedded himself into Patricia’s life. Gradually, he sets out to take everything that she has previously taken for granted, including her book club. Patricia must fight back to protect herself and those she cares for, and in doing so will prove to everyone that a Southern lady is a formidable enemy to make.

Author Grady Hendrix is an American writer, screenwriter, journalist, and one of the founders of the New York Asian Film Festival. He’s best known for his best-selling 2014 novel Horrorstör, as well as his growing selection of published horror and thriller novels.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide focuses on the lives of southern housewives in the late eighties, in a setting not unlike that which Hendrix himself grew up. The text allows for an inspection of the lives of these women through the myopic perspective of Patricia Campbell, although hers is a lens through which we are shown a much larger picture. The women in Patricia’s book club are key to considering what Hendrix seeks to portray in this novel, which is ultimately a theme of oppression through the ranks of society – starting at the top and working its way down through the varying intersections of race and class. This exploration of subjugation, and how these characters rise above it, is what makes this book such a satisfying read.

‘He thinks we're what we look like on the outside: nice Southern ladies. Let me tell you something...there's nothing nice about Southern ladies.’

The story showcases gaslighting at its finest. While the horror of James Harris’s vampiric nature is the focus, it is how he gets away with his terrifying deeds which really elicits chills. The male characters are presented as – to put it plainly - bullies, and their total disregard of their wives’ pleas for help provokes the frustration which truly aligns the reader with Patricia. Trapped in a silent role within her own life, she is forced to accept events as they unfold, or else face persecution from her family and friends. After all, it is her word against James Harris’s, who is a respectable member of their community, and a man.

Hendrix also conveys another, perhaps more pressing theme through this lens. It is through Patricia’s story that we are informed of another suffrage: that of the black community who live on the other side of town, and who are the target of Harris’s violence. Disregarded by the police, they are forced to rely on Patricia as their children are taken from them.

‘When I tell someone what’s happening out here they see an old woman living in the country who’s never been to school. When you tell them, they see a doctor’s wife from the Old Village and they pay attention.’

This theme of reliance and hierarchy astutely recognises the problem with southern society at the time – a theme which is by no means outdated from a modern perspective. It is this flawed patriarchal system that casts a sense of isolation upon all characters who do not land under the category of ‘white male’. Indeed, what was most intriguing about this book was Patricia’s emotional distance from her own children, who, as the children of a white man, fall above her in the chain of command. Hendrix combats this system by giving the lower-ranked characters a voice, as well as a unified mission – to defeat a supernatural personification of that which takes away their power.

This book acts as a consciousness raising novel and is Hendrix’s attempt to tailor his work to match the waves of feminist fiction which are overtaking many genres in the current literary climate. Readers are increasingly seeking exposition, and realistic portrayals of everyday struggles, and so Hendrix has presented his readers with exactly that.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide is truly a gripping read. It was gruesome and shocking at times, but the true thrill of it lay in between the lines, and in the characters who dwelled in the background. Hendrix’s combination of supernatural vs real-life horror works concurrently to great effect, and that is what makes this a perfect read for not only fans of horror, but also readers who seek metaphors instead of monsters.

Bibliography

Hendrix, G., 2020. The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires. Philadelphia: Quirk Books.
Hogeland, L., 1998. Feminism And Its Fictions : The Consciousness-Raising Novel And The Women's Liberation Movement. [ebook] Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Available at: <https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.falmouth.ac.uk/stable/j.ctv5139z4?refreqid=excelsior%3Aa134752904112e9dc6526b8858c290ed> [Accessed 3 November 2020].
Mayer, P., 2020. NPR Choice Page. [online] Npr.org. Available at: <https://www.npr.org/2020/04/26/844358645/getting-some-blood-on-the-page-questions-for-grady-hendrix> [Accessed 3 November 2020].

Words by Tillie Holmes

Edited by Sophie Williams