by Grady Hendrix
Kris Pulaski was a rock star who almost made it, but now she lives paycheck to paycheck at a boring (if she's lucky) job as a cheap hotel desk clerk. All she has is memories of what almost was and the band member who ripped everybody off and went on to stardom, then obscurity, until she sees a billboard advertising his return tour.
This was a wild ride that earns its Horror category well and truly. Heavy on rock and roll, mainly Heavy Metal, but also you'll encounter conspiracy theories, supernatural stuff, cults, social commentary and a whole list of triggers with claustrophobia topping the list and some notable gore. If you've got a trigger, just assume it's in here somewhere.
I should mention that the characters were all distinctive and well developed, especially Kris, and the plot had unpredictable twists and all sorts of surprises.
Some parts of this were difficult for me to read, but I had to know what would happen so I persevered. The end was worth it. For the Horror fan, this is a work of art. For those who don't like Horror or tend to be squeamish, best steer clear. I can see this story developing its own cult following. Black Iron Mountain has touched the souls of all who read it.
I’m a little late to this one so I’ll only add my one cent instead of my usual two. You’re welcome, lol. Also, everyone else has already said all the things and said them better than I ever could at this point.
So I'll start off with my complaint because, sorry for those who don’t know, I’m kind of a jerk. This book about proper southern housewives and the possible pasty-ass vampire in their midst is set in the ’90s and I continually felt as if I were reading a book set in the ’70s. It might be because the whole housewife under the thumb of her man is rather foreign to me and it feels outdated in the ’90s but I could probably chalk this up to different life experiences. Anyhow, I pretended it was set in the late ’70s and it was easier to swallow the fact that these ladies were feeling so beholden to their menfolk. And, argggghhh, these men. They are all so TERRIBLE. Terrible, horrible, evil, selfish creatures who were rude and condescending and infuriating whenever they were on the page. I’m not even talking about the vampiric one either. He’s even worse but at least he has a bit of an excuse. He IS a monster. He is expected to behave like a monster (and damn does he ever!) The rest of these dudes are simply vile humans and I’m so glad all men weren’t like this in the ’90s and that’s all I have to say about that.
Whew, sorry about that. The rest of the book is fantastic. It’s full of dark humor and takes its time with the horror. The opening chapters set the scene and bring the characters and their daily struggles to life but when the horror happens hold on tight because things get creepy, disturbing, and gross. These ladies are smart and when no one will listen to them (see above) after children start disappearing and other horrible things happen, they have to take matters into their own hands and things get gloriously grisly.
“Let me tell you something there’s nothing nice about Southern Ladies.”
I’d like to see a sequel where the husbands are taken care of properly in the end. And when I say taken care of properly, I mean served up on a platter instead of being waited on by their ladies. Sorry, but I can only speaketh the truth.
From the title, I assumed 'The Southern Book Club's Guide To Slaying Vampires' would be a soft, fluffy story. Boy was I wrong about that.
To be fair to myself, while my reading before Grady Hendrix had told me that vampires, (except for the sparkly vegetarian ones) were scary predators, it had also told me that they'd be kept in check by:
So I tended not to worry about them too much.
Grady Hendrix rejects all of that, His vampire is a lone, ungoverned, insatiable predator who won't be stopped except by desperate, ordinary people who have nothing to lose and it won't be easy.
One of the things that will make it difficult is that ordinary people like you and me, we don't really believe in vampires any more than we believe in Tinkerbell.
Hendrix poses the question, 'How do you fight what you believe isn't real?'
Part of the answer to that question is likely to be 'Alone', because who's going to believe you?
Except maybe the women you meet every week at a book club devoted to discussing serial killers?
This way of looking at vampires makes them a lot more threatening.
At the start of the book, I assumed, wrongly, that all that was needed was for the women to form their own Scooby-gang and the vampire would be done for. At that point, the vampire seemed menacing but no more than that. Once he was unmasked, what harm could he do?
Grady Hendrix didn't make it that easy.
I raised my threat assessment level when the vampire sent killer rats to swarm helpless women in their own homes but I didn't really understand what I was dealing with until two of the middle-class white women from the book club went to visit the home of the black nurse who was hurt in that attack. While they were waiting to be let in they heard little girls singing a skipping song about the Boo Daddy who is coming at night to steal children. The matter-of-fact tone of that song and the internalised fear it represented was more chilling than the rats.
I knew then that Hendrix wasn't just talking about vampires here, or perhaps it's more accurate to say that the vampire isn't just a vampire. The vampire is an evil that lurks beneath the surface of our society but that we don't talk about.
I think the Boo Daddy that the children sing about and that the adults put effort into not seeing, represents the white male predators who move unpunished through our world because we don't believe that racial hatred, misogyny, and twisted lust will really rip away the lives and happiness of the people we love. We tell ourselves that ours is not a culture that condones rape and abuse and killing, even though all the numbers tell us a different story.
Hendrix's vampire is an embodiment of insatiable male greed. He's charming and charismatic, has the knack of making the men around him want to follow him and feel better about themselves for doing so, even as he takes every opportunity, politely and with a smile, to undermine, demean, mock and threaten their wives. He is a corrupter, a sower of discord, a parasite.
Hendrix's vampire isn't some stuffy Transilvanian Count pining for his glory days, he is 100% Pure American Prime Raggedy Man. He's the hustle that has always sold the American dream without ever delivering it.
Men don't come out of this story well. For me, one of the most disturbing scenes in the book was where the husbands of the women in the book club behave (entirely believably, I'm afraid) like a group of pompous, patronising, patriarchal pricks, treating their assembled wives like children needing correction from wiser heads. This scene made me think that the women should make the suspected vampire a second priority and come together to devise a way of teaching their husbands the need to respect the women they're married to. Except, most of the ways I could immediately think of to do that would have turned the women into widows.
It's that mix of fury and impotence that sets the tone of this story.
What I liked most about the story was its message that knowing the vampire is there, knowing who he is and what he does, isn't enough to defeat him or even to convince the people who love you to help you because this vampire has seduced not the women but the men. He's turned them into the worst version of themselves and used them as a rod to impose his authority. Any woman who stands against him risks losing everything and with no guarantee of success.
Look around the world today. The vampires are there in plain sight shielded by men who admire them and who are willing to look the other way while they prey on the weak.
I think Hendrix is telling us that the only way to stop these predatory white men is for ordinary women, the mothers who protect all of us, to acknowledge the existence of the Boo Daddy and work together to rip out its heart. He's also telling us that that kind of thing has a price that has to be paid for in blood, lots of blood, some of it your own.
I recommend the audiobook version which is perfectly delivered by Bahni Turpin. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.
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