{"product_id":"the-southern-book-clubs-guide-to-slaying-vampires-isbn-9781683692515","title":"The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e“This funny and fresh take on a classic tale manages to comment on gender roles, racial disparities, and white privilege all while creeping me all the way out. So good.”—Zakiya Dalila Harris, author of The Other Black Girl\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow in paperback,\u003ci\u003e Steel Magnolias\u003c\/i\u003e meets \u003ci\u003eDracula\u003c\/i\u003e in this \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e best-selling horror novel about a women's book club that must do battle with a mysterious newcomer to their small Southern town.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBonus features:\u003cbr\u003e   • Reading group guide for book clubs \u003cbr\u003e   • Hand-drawn map of Mt. Pleasant \u003cbr\u003e   • Annotated true-crime reading list by Grady Hendrix \u003cbr\u003e   • And more! \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ePatricia Campbell’s life has never felt smaller. Her husband is a workaholic, her teenage kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she’s always a step behind on her endless to-do list. The only thing keeping her sane is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime. At these meetings they’re as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are about their own families.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne evening after book club, Patricia is viciously attacked by an elderly neighbor, bringing the neighbor's handsome nephew, James Harris, into her life. James is well traveled and well read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn’t felt in years. But when children on the other side of town go missing, their deaths written off by local police, Patricia has reason to believe James Harris is more of a Bundy than a Brad Pitt. The real problem? James is a monster of a different kind—and Patricia has already invited him in. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eLittle by little, James will insinuate himself into Patricia’s life and try to take everything she took for granted—including the book club—but she won’t surrender without a fight in this blood-soaked tale of neighborly kindness gone wrong.\u003cb\u003eThe \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003eBest Seller\u003cbr\u003eA Barnes \u0026amp; Noble Best Fiction Book of 2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e2021 Locus Award Finalist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist\u003cbr\u003e#1 April 2020 LibraryReads Pick\u003cbr\u003eApril 2020 Indie Next Pick\u003cbr\u003eAmazon Best Book of April 2020\u003cbr\u003eA \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e Editors' Pick for April 2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe A.V. Club\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of April 2020\u003cbr\u003eA POPSUGAR Best Book for Book Clubs 2020\u003cbr\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eGood Housekeeping\u003c\/i\u003e's 30 of the Scariest Horror Books Ever Written\u003cbr\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eTown \u0026amp; Country’s\u003c\/i\u003e 50 Best Horror Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This funny and fresh take on a classic tale manages to comment on gender roles, racial disparities, and white privilege all while creeping me all the way out. So good.”—Zakiya Dalila Harris, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Other Black Girl\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Ghosts of the past have also inspired one of the most rollicking, addictive novels I’ve read in years: \u003ci\u003eThe Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires\u003c\/i\u003e by Grady Hendrix, a tale of housewives battling vampires that is sweetly painful, like hard candy that breaks a tooth.”—Danielle Trussoni for \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A delight...its incisive social commentary and meaningful character development make \u003ci\u003eThe Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires\u003c\/i\u003e not just a palatable read for non-horror fans, but a winning one.”—US\u003ci\u003eA Today\u003c\/i\u003e, 3.5 out of 4 star review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Funny, gruesome, and wild, this rollicking novel from horror luminary Grady Hendrix is \u003ci\u003eDesperate Housewives\u003c\/i\u003e meets \u003ci\u003eDracula\u003c\/i\u003e.”—\u003ci\u003eEsquire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Delightful read that reads like \u003ci\u003eDracula\u003c\/i\u003e set in the '90s American South....Perfect for fans of horror and real-life crime alike.”—\u003ci\u003eGood Housekeeping\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The novel is a charming testament to friendships and life's imperfections, with dashes of rot and savagery to earn its keep in horror literature....It's a rollercoaster [that] lands as a vampire story concreted in vileness and Southern charm.”—\u003ci\u003eFangoria\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Hendrix] remains excellent at staging page-turning sequences of excitement and anxiety...[and] a master of adding little details that fill in the landscape of his Southern-fried world.”—\u003ci\u003eThe A.V. Club\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“As fun (and as creepy) as the title suggests….This novel will definitely whet your appetite if you’re looking for something a bit eccentric and spooky.”\u003ci\u003e—BuzzFeed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This book should be required reading for all Southern women....[It] transports you back to all the best parts of the 1990's while throwing more than enough thrill and chill into the mix.”\u003ci\u003e—Country Living \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] clever, addictive vampire thriller....This powerful, eclectic novel both pays homage to the literary vampire canon and stands singularly within it.”—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hendrix cleverly sprinkles in nods to well-established vampire lore, and the fact that he's a master at conjuring heady 1990s nostalgia is just the icing on what is his best book yet. Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.”—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hendrix has masterfully blended the disaffected housewife trope with a terrifying vampire tale, and the anxiety and tension are palpable...a cheeky, spot-on pick for book clubs.”—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003cb\u003eGrady Hendrix \u003c\/b\u003eis a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e best-selling novelist and screenwriter who owns too many paperbacks and not enough shelves. He’s the author of \u003ci\u003eHow to Sell a Haunted House\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Final Girl Support Group, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires\u003c\/i\u003e, and many more, including \u003ci\u003ePaperbacks from Hell\u003c\/i\u003e, a history of the horror paperback boom of the seventies and eighties that won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Nonfiction. (All the paperbacks are for “research” and he needs them.) His books have sold over three million copies and have been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in New York City and will die there, too, probably crushed to death beneath piles of those paperbacks.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1988, George H. W. Bush had just won the presidential election by inviting everyone to read his lips while Michael Dukakis lost it by riding in a tank. Dr. Huxtable was America’s dad,\u003ci\u003e Kate \u0026amp; Allie\u003c\/i\u003e were America’s moms, \u003ci\u003eThe Golden Girls\u003c\/i\u003e were America’s grandmoms, McDonald’s announced it was opening its first restaurant in the Soviet Union, everyone bought Stephen Hawking’s\u003ci\u003e A Brief History of Time\u003c\/i\u003e and didn’t read it, \u003ci\u003ePhantom of the Opera\u003c\/i\u003e opened on Broadway, and Patricia Campbell got ready to die.\u003cbr\u003e     She sprayed her hair, put on her earrings, and blotted her lipstick, but when she looked at herself in the mirror she didn’t see a housewife of thirty-nine with two children and a bright future, she saw a dead person. Unless war broke out, the oceans rose, or the earth fell into the sun, tonight was the monthly meeting of the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant, and she hadn’t read this month’s book. And she was the discussant. Which meant that in less than ninety minutes she would stand up in front of a room full of women and lead them in a conversation about a book she hadn’t read.\u003cbr\u003e      She had meant to read \u003ci\u003eCry, the Beloved Country\u003c\/i\u003e—honestly—but every time she picked up her copy and read \u003ci\u003eThere is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills\u003c\/i\u003e, Korey rode her bike off the end of the dock because she thought that if she pedaled fast enough she could skim across the water, or she set her brother’s hair on fire trying to see how close she could get a match before it caught, or she spent an entire weekend telling everyone who called that her mother couldn’t come to the phone because she was dead, which Patricia only learned about when people started showing up at the front door with condolence casseroles.\u003cbr\u003e     Before Patricia could discover why the road that runs from Ixopo was so lovely, she’d see Blue run past the sun porch windows buck naked, or she’d realize the house was so quiet because she’d left him at the downtown library and had to jump in the Volvo and fly back over the bridge, praying that he hadn’t been kidnapped by Moonies, or because he’d decided to see how many raisins he could fit up his nose (twenty-four). She never even learned where Ixopo was exactly because her mother-in-law, Miss Mary, moved in with them for a six-week visit and the garage room had to have clean towels, and the sheets on the guest bed had to be changed every day, and Miss Mary had trouble getting out of the tub so they had one of those bars installed and she had to find somebody to do that, and the children had laundry that needed to be done, and Carter had to have his shirts ironed, and Korey wanted new soccer cleats because everyone else had them but they really couldn’t afford them right now, and Blue was only eating white food so she had to make rice every night for supper, and the road to Ixopo ran on to the hills without her.\u003cbr\u003e     Joining the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant had seemed like a good idea at the time. Patricia realized she needed to get out of the house and meet new people the moment she leaned over at supper with Carter’s boss and tried to cut up his steak for him. A book club made sense because she liked reading, especially mysteries. Carter had suggested it was because she went through life as if the entire world were a mystery to her, and she didn’t disagree: \u003ci\u003ePatricia Campbell and the Secret of Cooking Three Meals a Day, Seven Days a Week, without Losing Your Mind. Patricia Campbell and the Case of the Five-Year-Old Child Who Keeps Biting Other People. Patricia Campbell and the Mystery of Finding Enough Time to Read the Newspaper When You Have Two Children and a Mother-in-Law Living with You and Everyone Needs Their Clothes Washed, and to Be Fed, and the House Needs to Be Cleaned and Someone Has to Give the Dog His Heartworm Pills and You Should Probably Wash Your Own Hair Every Few Days or Your Daughter Is Going to Ask Why You Look Like a Street Person\u003c\/i\u003e. A few discreet inquiries, and she’d been invited to the inaugural meeting of the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant at Marjorie Fretwell’s house.\u003cbr\u003e      The Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant picked their books for that year in a very democratic process: Marjorie Fretwell invited them to select eleven books from a list of thirteen she found appropriate. She asked if there were other books anyone wanted to recommend, but everyone understood that wasn’t a real question, except for Slick Paley, who seemed chronically unable to read social cues.\u003cbr\u003e      “I’d like to nominate \u003ci\u003eLike Lambs to the Slaughter: Your Child and the Occult\u003c\/i\u003e,” Slick said. “With that crystal store on Coleman Boulevard and Shirley MacLaine on the cover of Time magazine talking about her past lives, we need a wake-up call.”\u003cbr\u003e      “I’ve never heard of it,” Marjorie Fretwell said. “So I imagine it falls outside our mandate of reading the great books of the Western world. Anyone else?”\u003cbr\u003e     “But—” Slick protested.\u003cbr\u003e     “Anyone else?” Marjorie repeated.\u003cbr\u003e     They selected the books Marjorie wrote down for them, assigned each book to the month Marjorie thought best, and picked the discussants Marjorie thought were most appropriate. The discussant would open the meeting by delivering a twenty-minute presentation on the book, its background, and the life of its author, then lead the group discussion. A discussant could not cancel or trade books with anyone else without paying a stiff fine because the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant was not fooling around. When it became clear she wasn’t going to be able to finish \u003ci\u003eCry, the Beloved Country\u003c\/i\u003e, Patricia called Marjorie.\u003cbr\u003e      “Marjorie,” she said over the phone while putting a lid on the rice and turning it down from a boil. “It’s Patricia Campbell. I need to talk to you about \u003ci\u003eCry, the Beloved Country.\u003c\/i\u003e”\u003cbr\u003e     “Such a powerful work,” Marjorie said.\u003cbr\u003e     “Of course,” Patricia said.\u003cbr\u003e     “I know you’ll do it justice,” Marjorie said.\u003cbr\u003e     “I’ll do my best,” Patricia said, realizing that this was the exact opposite of what she needed to say.\u003cbr\u003e     “And it’s so timely with the situation in South Africa right now,” Marjorie said.\u003cbr\u003e     A cold bolt of fear shot through Patricia: what was the situation in South Africa right now?\u003cbr\u003e     After she hung up, Patricia cursed herself for being a coward and a fool, and vowed to go to the library and look up \u003ci\u003eCry, the Beloved Country\u003c\/i\u003e in the \u003ci\u003eDirectory of World Literature\u003c\/i\u003e, but she had to do snacks for Korey’s soccer team, and the babysitter had mono, and Carter had a sudden trip to Columbia and she had to help him pack, and then a snake came out of the toilet in the garage room and she had to beat it to death with a rake, and Blue drank a bottle of Wite-Out and she had to take him to the doctor to see if he would die (he wouldn’t). She tried to look up Alan Paton, the author, in their \u003ci\u003eWorld Book Encyclopedia\u003c\/i\u003e but they were missing the\u003ci\u003e P\u003c\/i\u003e volume. She made a mental note that they needed new encyclopedias.\u003cbr\u003e     The doorbell rang.\u003cbr\u003e     “Mooooom,” Korey called from the downstairs hall. “Pizza’s here!”\u003cbr\u003e     She couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to face Marjorie.","brand":"Quirk Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301056237797,"sku":"NP9781683692515","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781683692515.jpg?v=1767741604","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-southern-book-clubs-guide-to-slaying-vampires-isbn-9781683692515","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}