Comment

Nov 17, 2020smoini rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
This was a stunning horror novel that cleverly used the vampire trope as a vehicle to force the reader to confront some uncomfortable truths about the pervasive culture of white supremacy and patriarchy. There were many gory moments that freaked me out, but what truly set my hair on edge were moments involving the husbands, secure in the knowledge of their superiority, patronizing and manipulating their wives - dismissing their concerns outright - to protect one of their own. Mrs. Greene is such a powerful character, but we only see her on the fringes as this book is told in the first person with our protagonist being a middle-class Southern white woman who is primed to not pay much attention to a Black woman she hires to care for her mother-in-law. The fact that Patricia even deigns to follow-up on Mrs. Greene is more attention than any of her friends would have paid, and *yet it is still insufficient* as Patricia cannot be goaded into action until the danger comes for her. The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires is such a clever indictment of white culture. Grady Hendrix has brought a fresh new twist to the horror genre with this book!