5/5 Goodreads stars.
Book number 18 for 2023.
This is one of those books that can be described by the word “unputdownable.” I suppose I was literally able to put it down a few times. But I spent more than my usual amount of reading time on this last day, because I simply had to finish it.
I had been walking by the Grady Hendrix section of our library for a while, and had picked up a book or two, considering checking them out. I finally decided on this one, and 1) I’m not sorry; 2) I’m wondering why it took me so long.
Hendrix has a sort of “rapid-fire” writing style that never gets dull. This book starts out funny, laugh-out-loud funny at some points. I can’t exactly nail down when it happened, but there was a point at which it definitely wasn’t funny anymore. I will say that there was one point, on the last day I was reading it, at which I had tears in my eyes. My commitment to avoid spoilers keeps me from saying when that occurred, but anyone who has read it might be able to guess when it was.
One thing I really like about this book is that the sections are named after the books that the book club is reading that month. It starts with Cry, the Beloved Country, which was the one that launched the group of friends into their own book club, spinning it off of the original one. Some of the other books they read were Helter Skelter, Psycho, The Stranger Beside Me, and In Cold Blood. I’ve actually never read any of those. I have a copy of The Stranger Beside Me, but I haven’t read it yet. I have, however, read a book called Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, which opines that Vincent Bugliosi, the lead prosecutor and author of Helter Skelter, got it all wrong.
But that’s beside the point. James Harris, the antagonist of this book (I say THE antagonist, as though there were only one . . . all of the husbands of our book club ladies were pretty antagonistic along the way, as well), is not your average “vampire.” In fact, it might be said that he’s really not an actual “vampire” at all. But he is a monster. And he has come to Old Village and is wreaking havoc in the life of Patricia Campbell.
The problem is, he’s also a really good guy. At least in appearance. He does so much for the community, and for Patricia’s little group of white friends. But someone is helping themselves to children in the poorer area of town.
Mr. Hendrix weaves a web of characters that are both easy to like and easy to despise. I know I felt anger toward almost all of them at least once, except for Patricia, herself, for whom I felt great sadness and pity. It made me very sad that she kept blaming herself for all of the bad things that were happening, but that was because her husband and other people were blaming her and she listened to them.
Even the vampire blamed her.
I do like the author’s note at the beginning. It ended like this:
“I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom.
“As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight.”
Never underestimate the power of a group of Southern Book Club ladies.
A few other favorite lines:
“Nightwalking men always have a hunger on them. They never stop taking and they don’t know about enough. They mortgaged their souls away and now they eat and eat and never know how to stop.”
And, when the club was reading Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, one of the ladies said, “Men Are from Mars? That’s giving them too much credit.”
This book is most definitely not for the squeamish. It gets very gory.
I will definitely be reading more Hendrix.
TTFN, y’all!
The Constant Reader 