Audiobook Review: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
Narrated by Bahni Turpin
Genre: Horror
Age: Adult
Format: Audiobook
I’m going to be upfront: it’s rare I’ll enjoy women-centric books written by cis men. Often, I just find there’s slightly too many missteps, and a lack of consideration. Nothing malicious to it (um…mostly), but it doesn’t quite land more than it does.
And for these reasons, I was incredibly surprised and more than a little impressed by Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, and while listening to the audiobook, quite frequently forgot that it actually was a man who’d written this. Somehow, Hendrix just nails it, from the dynamics of the book club to the exasperations they experience because of their ‘men folk’, to the way these women’s husbands speak to and about them and even how Patricia views and deals with James, a handsome stranger who appears in town and completely changes the lives of everyone around him.
Hendrix very cleverly uses the vampire here; in another writer’s hand, James could be a warning, a possible escape from reality for Patricia, a love interest. But he sets her on edge and, as the story unfolds, we – along with Patricia – discover more and more disturbing information. And Patricia isn’t a saint; she lies to her friends to try and enlist them against James, she makes promises she can in no way keep, and she doesn’t handle her children as best she could, but we fully understand the situation she’s trapped in thanks to society and the pressures on women to be great hosts, mothers, and wives, and even when her friends ignore the danger in their midst, we understand their perspectives, too, even when we don’t agree with them.
The vampire in fiction is often a metaphor for something, and here Hendrix utilises different layers of the metaphor to show the danger posed to these women, their families, and their community. He pretty much seduces the men, encouraging them to put their faith in him, turning the book club where these women found friendship into one more ‘suitable’ for their husbands, while helping the men in the community make money. Like narcissists, abusers, predators, he carves out a position in the community that makes it impossible for anyone who does ‘take against’ him to speak out, and it leaves the women to face the fact they cannot rely on their spouses to protect them (and, again, their families or community).
I feel like there is a lot more I could say about this book, and all of it positive. It’s an excellent book with wonderfully written core characters, and a threat that really has you worried for their safety. It takes the darkest aspects of the vampire, emphasising the predatory nature of the monster, and uses him as a commentary on society in numerous ways. It may only be 5 years old, but this one deserves to stand as one of the great vampire books.
Review by Elle Turpitt
Twitter: @elleturpitt
Bluesky: @elleturpitt.bsky.social
I purchased this audiobook.
