9. The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

By Grady Hendrix 

Olman pre-ordered this new release as he's been on a major Grady Hendrix kick during the pandemic, ie. reading his newletters, making his way through Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction...  I think we even watched Satanic Panic on Shudder around this time (Hendrix wrote the screenplay), though that was my idea.  

When Olman finished TSBCGTSV, he said this would be right up my alley, so I read it shortly after.  He was right.  This was hard to put down.  I even forgot to note down the date I finished reading this gripping tale, so I'm picking a date between #8 and #10.

In the 1980’s, Southern ladies find themselves up against a white, patriarchal system in which a vampire (a tall, blond white male) is able to exploit to his advantage.  Kind of like how Jeffrey Dahmer was allowed to continue killing people, who were primarily POC and/or homosexual.  Olman put it nicely in his review: 

“The subtext here is privilege and how the evil impacts you worse the less privileged you are. Hendrix portrays the husbands, at the privilege pinnacle, scathingly. You just fucking hate them, especially Patricia's husband. I almost want an epilogue where terrible shit happens to him as he is exposed to his own ignorance. The white women's blindness to the situation of Mrs. Greene, who "does" for them is equally exposed. “

Unsurprisingly, I couldn't help but envision Alexander Skarsgård as James the neighbourhood vampire.  This book isn't going to win literary awards. There is just enough social commentary to keep it contemporary, but the characters remain pretty thinly sketched due to limitations of the genre, but it did its job of being a very enjoyable and gripping horror thriller.