The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

by Grady Hendrix

They took the hits so we could skate by obliviously, because that’s the deal: as a parent, you endure pain so your children don’t have to.

book, 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.

Patricia 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. A

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).

“This is what five kids looks like,” Kitty said over her shoulder. “Stay smart, Patricia. Stop at two.”

Sometimes she craved a little danger. And that was why she had book club.

they were all in this together, and if their husbands ever took out a life insurance policy on them they were in trouble.

Horse says we’re safe with his guns, but trust me, I’ve been dove hunting with that man. He can barely hit the sky.”

“I am not sure what the appropriate gesture is to make toward the family of the woman who bit off your ear, but if you felt absolutely compelled, I certainly wouldn’t take food.”

“A reader lives many lives,” James Harris said. “The person who doesn’t read lives but one. But if you’re happy just doing what you’re told and reading what other people think you should read, then don’t let me stop you. I just find it sad.”

“Nightwalking men always have a hunger on them,” she croaked. “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.”

Besides, one little boy has an accident, an old lady runs away with some man, the police figure it’s just colored people being colored.

“I hate you! I hate you! You tried to kill yourself because you’re crazy and now you’re tied to the bed and you’re going to be sent to a mental hospital. You don’t love any of us! All you care about are your stupid books!”

She thought about Bluebeard where the bride was told not to look behind a certain door by her husband and of course she did and discovered the corpses of his previous brides. Her mother had told her the moral of the story was that you should trust your husband and never pry. But wasn’t it better to know the truth? She headed for the master bedroom.

He thinks we’re what we look like on the outside: nice Southern ladies. Let me tell you something…there’s nothing nice about Southern ladies.”