Author: Grady Hendrix
Publisher: Quirk Books
Country: USA
Year: 2020
The last novel of Hendrix before his move to Titan Books for his next release (which would be The Final Girl Support Group) is, as he states in the introduction, a kind of companion piece for My Best Friend’s Exorcism, taking a look at the adventure of parenthood as opposed to the troubles of the teenage years. Here our protagonist is Patricia Campbell, mother of two, trying to do everything at once and fit in with the community’s book club. When that goes downhill because of the books they’re reading, most of these members form their own, looking at good old true crime books and lurid paperbacks. This should stand them in good stead as a kind of motherhood-neighbourhood-watch, but when James Harris arrives in town, seemingly nice but with a string of horrific incidents surrounding him, only Patricia can seem to believe that he might be more than he says he is.
Hendrix’s decision to frame this around vampirism is interesting, not just because that’s the main antagonist. As usual, he pulls from a multitude of sources, seemingly none moreso than Ira Levin’s influential 1972 feminist horror novel The Stepford Wives. Here is the role of the suburban housewife, dutifully meant to be carrying out everything and anything for their husbands, who accuse them of running away with themselves whilst they’re out making sure everyone stays rich and successful. 2022’s Don’t Worry Darling was also a riff off this idea. Yet this novel is set between the late 80s and the early 90s, so Hendrix combats this with the post-slasher era of feminist critics like Carol Clover (who coined the term ‘final girl’) and Judith Butler, where the misogyny is still in place, but the women of the tale eventually come round and manage to get on and do things. It straddles the line in American history well, placing it at that pivot point so important to the modern day.
What’s additionally interesting is that, for most of the book, although there’s vampires involved, that isn’t the plot. It’s a murder mystery, a true crime novel, and the book club’s focus on these true crime stories of Ted Bundy and the likes mirrors modern obsessions with true crime documentaries on Netflix. A clever choice, as it poses a world much like our own where fiction and reality combine, where fiction is easy to escape into despite it being a recounting of real events. Over and over this divide is brought up and discussed, used as a main talking point in the book’s narrative, pointing the analytical lens back at ourselves in today’s world. Do we think we’re so much smarter than reality, that it would go according to plan all of the time?
Thank everything, therefore, that we have a protagonist that isn’t winning all of the time. She ends up humiliated, unsure of what to do, never comfortable in almost any situation. Patricia gives us a character so much like how most of us would react in these situations in the real world. We say to ourselves that we’d just do this and take him down, or go in with an uppercut to the jaw and the bad guy wouldn’t stand a chance. However, a good many of us when confronted with a vampire would freeze and pee our pants. It’s this development throughout the story, of a woman continuously questioning herself, which is the real charm.
And it has to carry it through, because there are parts of the book which, like any mystery thriller, have to slow down. There are sections when it’s more focused on the gaslighting and the finger-pointing than it is the horror of a demon of the night stalking the streets of Southern USA, and when the pace drops, you do have to hold on to this character, this set of characters, to get you through it. Naturally, the plot needs downtime, as called for naturally, but that does make it a little tricky to get over those moments. It isn’t his best, but whenever we’re in Grady Hendrix’s cold, evil world, we’re in safe hands.
Rating: 7.5/10
Review by Kieran Judge
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