Have You Read This? The Southern Book Club Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

 

The vampire has been used so many times in fiction that it probably deserves its own section in Barnes and Noble (at the very least, it deserves a few displays). What began with Varney and Dracula has now expanded to the vampire infecting different genres from action to westerns to romance. Heck, there's probably an Amish vampire novel out there somewhere. So to take the vampire as your story's main villain and make that story stand out is an accomplishment, one that Grady Hendrix has done in his latest The Southern Book Club Guide to Slaying Vampires. 

Patricia Campbell is a housewife who has devoted herself to her family and her household, but she had found fulfillment in those to be lacking. With her ungrateful kids and distant husband, the only comfort in Patricia's life is a bookclub focusing on true crime. So when a stranger enters their neighborhood, and strange things start happening in her neighborhood, Patricia begins to suspect this stranger, charismatic James Harris, is cut from the same cloth as Bundy or Dahmer, but the truth is much more sinister and his grip on the community is much more difficult to pry loose. 

I can imagine the elevator pitch for this book being, "Okay, it's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but replace the Scooby Gang with the cast from Steel Magnolias." However, Grady Hendrix has shown time and again that he can create a truly resonant story out of a pretty wacky premise. Yes, this book has some gory moments, some funny moments, and even some comedic gory moments, but Hendrix never forgets the emotional core of this story, the friendship that unites these women. And James Harris is more than just the slavering monster; Hendrix makes him not only evil but also magnetic. It doesn't take him long to burrow into the community and make himself at home, even as the deaths pile up in a low-income area that borders the book club's. The book manages to discuss disparity between classes, suburban banality, and dreams deferred thanks to adult obligations, all in a story about Dracula invading a Southern suburb.