The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

A charming neighbor moves in, the casseroles come out, and the danger starts where polite society refuses to look. We crack open The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires to examine how a suburban horror story exposes patriarchy, gaslighting, and the quiet machinery that protects predators. From PTA meetings to police briefings, we trace how institutions prize male comfort, dismiss women’s intuition as hysteria, and treat marginalized communities as expendable until harm crosses the cul-de-sac line.

We dig into the power of niceness as a silencing tool, the emotional labor women perform to keep families afloat, and the chilling ease with which a charismatic man joins the “good guy” club. Mrs. Green’s perspective anchors a candid look at race and class: missing Black children labeled runaways, a nurse reduced to housework to be heard, and the unequal risks borne by those outside the old village. As the evidence mounts, we ask what it actually takes for fear to be believed—and what accountability looks like when law, medicine, and neighborhood respectability close ranks.

Along the way, we wrestle with uneasy catharsis, the cost of collective action, and why horror can tell social truth when polite narratives won’t. We also talk about reading as a practice of empathy in an era of shrinking attention and viral certainty—how books stretch our moral imagination and help us notice the people our systems are built to overlook. If you’re drawn to feminist critique, Southern Gothic vibes, book club dynamics, and stories where the real monster is the structure that enables him, this conversation will hit home and raise your heart rate.

Subscribe, share with a friend who loves thought-provoking horror, and leave a review telling us: who do you think the real villain is—and why?

Transcript

Welcome To Lit On Fire

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Lit on Fire, the podcast where literature meets controversy, where banned books, silenced voices, and dangerous ideas refuse to stay quiet. From classrooms to courtrooms, novels to news cycles, we explore how stories challenge power, expose injustice, and ignite social change.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Our logo, a woman bound to top a brain stack boat, isn't just an image, it's a warning. A warning about what happens when voices are raised, and a promise that stories once lit are impossible to put out.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

So if you're ready to question, to argue, to feel uncomfortable, and to think deeper, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

I'm Peter Wetzel.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

And I'm Elizabeth Hahn.

Why This Vampire Story Bites Harder

First Impressions And Emotional Whiplash

SPEAKER_00 0:41

And this is Lit on Fire. Welcome back. Today's episode dives into the Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendricks, a novel that pretends at first to be about casseroles, PTA meetings, and polite Southern womanhood before it sharpens its teeth. On the surface, this is a suburban vampire story set in the late 80s and early 90s American South. But underneath the blood and horror is something far more unsettling. A portrait of how women are taught to doubt themselves, defer to authority, and keep the peace, even when something is deeply, violently wrong. This book asks what happens when intuition is dismissed as hysteria, when concern is labeled gossip, and when men's comfort is prioritized over a woman's safety. In this discussion, we'll unpack how Hendricks uses horror to expose the everyday mechanics of the patriarchy, how institutions like marriage, policing, medicine, and neighborhood respectability quietly protect predators while gaslighting the women who see the truth first. We'll talk about emotional labor, motherhood, marital power dynamics, and the weaponization of niceness, especially in communities that value appearances over accountability. This episode will also grapple with the novel's social critiques, race, class, southern respectability politics, and the question of who is believed and who is sacrificed when evil wears a charming face. Because the vampire in this story isn't just supernatural, he's charismatic. So grab your book club wine, sharpen your stakes, and settle in. This isn't just a story about slaying monsters, it's about recognizing them, naming them, and refusing to be silent when no one wants to listen. So, Liz, let's hear your take.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Well, I really did love it in the end. I'm going to say that I would give it the what, five out of five stars. It is a slow burn in the beginning. And you really get into what these women's lives are like. So it has some buildup to it, but it's buildup with purpose. I would encourage anyone who has not read this and decides to pick it up that you allow it to build and roll with it because it really does take you through the process of what these women are going through. And therefore, there is going to be some frustration and some, you know, I want to slam this book down. And I even texted you a couple times when I was like, tell me this gets better. But it was good. The whole package coming together, you really see what Grady Hendricks did with this book. So I enjoyed it a lot. What about you when you first read it?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

I went through a lot of the same emotions, which is why I was really wanting you to read this. Because I knew that if it infuriated me as much as it did, it was going to be twice as emotional for you. And I just was cracking up at all the text message you were sending me because it's I'm going to jump in this book and kill someone. Which is exactly how I felt too. And surprisingly, who I wanted to kill versus who you think you would want to kill. And we'll discuss that. But yeah, I questioned at first whether or not this male author had not read Grady Hendrix before, was going to be able to handle what he presents as a topic about feminism and a story inspired by his mother and how she kind of found her voice in a very southern, constrictive, confining experience as a woman growing up in the South. I think he did that well in this book. I've since read some other of his books, and I'm not always sure that his maleness doesn't get in the way of his feminist perspective. But in this book, I think he made some really powerful statements. And like you said, in the end, when it all wrapped up, it gave me so much to think about. It gave me a lot of emotional catharsis. And yet it also leaves you a little bit unsettled still. And I think there's a reason for that as well.

Plot Setup And Southern Setting

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Right. And just to jump in on the Grady Hendrix idea, I did, when I was reading it, feel like it was so effective in discussing the women's point of view and feminist take that I actually, because I had never read him, looked up Grady Hendrix thinking this is going to be like a pseudonym for a woman. And still this white man popped up, and I'm like, oh, really? That is fascinating. So I thought he did do this really well, especially coming from a male point of view. So let's get a synopsis of what basically goes on. This story does take place in a quiet suburban southern town outside of Charleston. You very much have the separation racially going on in this town. So the women that are our main characters, and there's one woman in particular, they live in what's called the old village, which is very proper. It's middle to upper class white families, and everyone knows everyone's business. And then you have the black community living outside of this area in a place called Six Mile. So there is that separation going on. This is the late 1980s, early 1990s. And these women initially start to go to a book club that is very intellectual and it's about bettering themselves. And then we have this core group of women, five women total, who create a new book club where they enjoy more sensational novels and a lot of true crime and all that kind of stuff, and just make it a place for them to come together and escape their suburban housewife lives, where they are focused on taking care of their kids and making dinner and making sure it's on the table for their husbands. There are ways in which you might feel like, is this the late 80s and early 90s? Because I started thinking 1950s, but it really is the late 80s and early 90s. And then this stranger comes into town, someone completely from out of town, and there is the usual suspicion of who is this person. Then he gradually works his way into everyone's lives, and then weird things start happening, bad things start happening. It starts in the black community where everyone can kind of ignore it and see that community as expendable, which is a whole discussion in itself. But then it starts to creep further and further in, and we have this knowledge that something truly terrible is happening, and now it's how are these women going to deal with it? Are they going to deal with it? And our main character, Patricia, is the one that really sees the stranger for who he is and begins to make a lot of noises, and then there's a lot of moments where she is silenced.

Patriarchy As The Real Villain

SPEAKER_00 7:07

I want to engage in something you said specifically. When you were reading it, you thought, boy, this feels a lot more like the 1950s, and that's exactly how I felt too, because neither of us grew up in the South, right? Right. So I had to go to my wife, who was born and raised in Georgia, and I had to tell her the feeling that I was getting, and she was like, no, that's that's pretty much we've always culturally, we've always been kind of behind as far as cultural roles, uh, social roles, uh, gender roles, and racial segregation, right? So it does have that really, we're still negotiating and operating within these parameters.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

And I see that in particular, and I'm from originally California and I've lived several different places, but I have been in the South now for well over 20 years, I think 24 or 25 years now. And that is really true. And when you go into rural areas, it's even more so. And when I look at the community that I now live in and teach in, you see how far behind we are.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

So leading into one of the things that was most frustrating for me, and I'm sure you as well, is how the men in particular in this book and the upper class men in this book dismiss the concerns of not just the women and their safety, but they dismiss quite easily the concerns of the more marginalized people in the community, which would be the black community. And that was continually frustrating. The fact the condescension of these men towards everyone was what made me want to jump through the page and throttle somebody.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Oh, me too. I really felt incensed. I felt rage. I felt all the things as I was reading some of those episodes and the exchanges between husbands and wives in particular, and I was like, oh no, oh hell no, no, we're not doing this. And I thought, I'm gonna kill these men. This cannot be the way this book goes. So that really leads to agree or disagree. The real villain of the novel isn't the vampire, it's the system that protects him.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Exactly. And I totally agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Like I said in the intro, he's extremely charismatic. Before you even know he's a vampire, he's very likable in a way. He's very sociable. Yeah. I mean, it's a little like car salesman-y, he's not a twirling mustache villain. And he blends in quite well with the men, which reminds me of something that happened early on in my relationship with now my wife. We'd see a guy on TV or whatever get accused of doing something heinous, or even someone that I know get accused and convicted of having done something heinous. And I would say, I seem like a really good guy, or yeah, I met him and I I knew him, and he he was seemed like a good guy to me. And she stopped me and she said, Will you stop saying that phrase? I absolutely hate that phrase because it sheds doubt on the accuser, first of all, by saying, Oh, it's even though you're not explicitly saying it, you're implying it, right? And also, it's this club you all have. If you're in the good old boys' club, the good guy club, then you you're inclined to protect one another as men. Right. Right. And that's what's going on in this book. He maneuvers himself into the good old boys' club, and all the men think about he's such a good guy, he's such a good guy. And that, you know, and that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Well, and it helps that he's also making the money.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yes, that too.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Right? So the capitalism really comes into play because he is absolutely feeding into that system. And so this idea that he isn't the real villain, it's the system that protects him. Well, yeah, because he becomes part of the system. His villainy and even that vampire nature and the charisma that you're talking about integrates itself so thoroughly into the patriarchal structure because he knows he can work with that. That is how he can continue to prey on people because he already knows that the racial stressors exist. He already knows that the gender stressors exist. And so he's gonna pull on all those lines. So his ability to act is rooted in that system that protects him.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Yeah, and I want to point out something that actually just happened organically in our conversation. I said he seems like a pretty good guy, and you said you were like, No, I don't think so. So it's still happening. I am still receiving him more easily than you are as a woman. And that's exactly what happens with Patricia. She gets that intuition about him that none of the men are getting.

Gaslighting, Politeness, And Control

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Right. And I get angry at her because she enables his behavior initially. The moment she just automatically plays the good housewife and welcomes him into her home, I'm like, you idiot. I am sitting on the outside reading all the creep vibes and all the condescension and all the annoyance I perceive from him from the first moment when she tries to go see him and bring him a casserole because that's what she thinks she needs to do. He is angry and sharp with her and makes her apologize for herself. But then, yes, he's charming. So I guess for me, the reason my automatic response was, no, not really, is because I read those little micro aggressions as he is really treating her in a particular way, and then he turns around and he's just beautifully friendly and he's attractive and all that kind of stuff, and she forgives him of everything. But that's what these women are doing with their husbands as well, is they're forgiving them of everything. Oh, my husband's having an indiscretion with the secretary. Oh, okay. You know, that's just something that happens. I just have to be a better wife here at home. Bullshit. I just called foul so many times as I was reading this, and he just had all these red flags going on for me right away. I mean, you kind of know there's a vampire in the story, so you're waiting for that vampire to come, and I'll acknowledge that. But at the same time, just even as a man, I'm like, dude, back about 10 feet up because I'm not interested in what you're offering.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Right. Yeah, but you haven't been raised her entire life in that kind of oppressive Southern patriarchal state. Right. So you're already more inclined to stand up for yourself than Patricia is, who's been gaslit her entire life. So she's taught to doubt every bit of intuition she has.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

But there are still so many women that are just like that. We haven't aged out of it in 2026. You know, so we talk about this being in the late 80s and early 90s. We haven't aged out of it, especially here in the South, but I think in general, think of all the men that are enabled to continue to do heinous things, and they're enabled by women. Obviously, we're weary of the same references all the time, but you look at the women surrounding Epstein and you go, okay, they all allowed that to happen. It's not like they didn't know that there were things going on. You turn a blind eye and you continue to enable someone. And I could certainly throw other names down at this point also.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Well, let's just say that we have women enabling Epstein's clients, and we have photographic proof of that, too.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Right. While we clearly want to acknowledge the victims in this situation, because the victims are many, and we see victims in this book as well. We also see the allies to the men that are women who are actually endorsing their bad behavior. And so that still goes on today. It's not limited to this story, but I do appreciate that it shows what our mothers went through, but then we have to turn around and we have to look through the lens of where we are now. And yes, I have had several transitions in my life, including one bad marriage, to go, yeah, no, there's a boundary here and you can back all the way off. But there are still many women that are operating within exactly what we see in this book.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yes. And you had to learn to respond that way the hard way.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Right. Politeness is portrayed as a form of violence against women in this novel. The expectations in this novel of Southern hospitalities, the niceties, the politeness, southern hospitalities end up bringing violence on these women. And it is a continual form of silencing them. So there's all that politeness going on that is actually not sincere. And there's a lot of backstabbing, and there's a lot of just other things going on under the surface that show you that that violence is there in the midst of all the niceties.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

And that's one of the reasons why these five women break off from that book club that was really just supporting that system. And they create this other divergent club which allows them a safe place to escape some of that social expectations, to speak out loud and discuss some of the things that they're encouraged to remain silent about. But only to a point.

The Book Club As Safe Rebellion

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Because they're still, to a certain extent, carrying all that baggage with them. So when Patricia begins to raise concerns and then it begins to threaten the security of their marriages, the security of their lifestyle, the women who are her friends actually push back and we have this fracturing. So I appreciated the fact that it was very real in that way. It's not like these five women come together in this new book club and become like superhuman female lawyers. They're still just women hung up by all the same things that were going on in that other book club, maybe more honest with one another about where they are, but in the end they're carrying those same traditions with them right until the very end.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Yes. And when they leave the book club, they go back to their safe little southern status quo. Patricia's husband knows that the book club reads a lot of true crime or spicy novels and things like that. And he just kind of rolls his eyes and you know, he gives her her little space to do her thing. But it also becomes a way of him sort of writing off her concerns later on because he's like, oh, it's just because you've been reading all of that trash, it's making you see things that aren't there and think things that are not true.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

You're just scared yourself.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yes. And then you've got the other woman whose husband is so conservative that she actually has to tell him she's going to a Bible study because he would not allow her to attend the book club.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Right. And her name is Slick, and she's always quoting scriptures all the time of the other women. So she says, play along with me. When our husbands get together, he's got to believe that we're in a Bible study.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Which is very sad. It is. And there's just a lot of things about these women's relationship with each of their husbands that's off. And maybe this isn't fair of Grady Hendrix, but none of these men really are good at all.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

No, and that is it's frustrating, but it's also very true of men that are ingrained in the system. It's like the conversations you said you and your wife had had. We have Patricia, whose husband of all things is a head of psychiatry. So he's always psychoanalyzing her and talking down to her, condescending in a major way, and then assuming that she's just hysterical and she may need medication. And then you've got Slick, whose husband is incredibly religious, and she's very religious, and everything is about the Bible, and everything is about raising their kids in God's way, and even Halloween is evil. And then you have Grace, who is the most wealthy and upper class woman who is the busybody of the neighborhood because she's always finding out what's going on with people. And, you know, are you going to keep your lawn like this because it doesn't look good at all? And then you've got Mary Ellen, who came from the city with her husband, who's a police officer, and you'd think they'd be a little more progressive, but they're not. And then you have Kitty, whose husband is an alcoholic, and he's not a bad guy, but he's kind of just conveniently out of it all the time, so that she is dealing with the kids and all the things that are going on.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah. And I think that every single one of these men is is meant to represent a sort of male archetype.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

It is. Now, Rady Hendricks gives us a variety, and it's not that some of these men don't love their wives. It's that they are part of a system that continues to allow some of these negative trends to grow.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

A system that allows accountability to be a popularity contest.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

A question that comes up: do you see them as villains or do you see them as just privileged men who aren't accountable?

SPEAKER_00 18:57

I think more villain.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Right.

Men As Archetypes And Enablers

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Honestly, because they actively engage in enabling the victimization. They are enabling this man to get away with being a predator of not only women but also children.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

One of the most villainous moments to me is when Patricia, who is the only one of the five that seems comfortable going into Sixth Mile to visit the black community. She goes out to Six Mile specifically because she's concerned about a little girl because these other children have disappeared. And there is a moment where Carter, her husband, jumps in and you think he's going to be really supportive. He understands something bad is going on here. And so he comes out and he's like, we're going to take care of it. Everything's going to be okay. And he completely flips on her and does not do what he promised her and does not follow through in the way that she hoped. And in that very moment, that's a very deliberate decision on his part. And then later on, when the men coordinate and make subtle attacks on their wives, as far as the condescension and everything is concerned, I do feel like it crosses over into villainy. And so I'm loath to give them any type of break in this particular area.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

So we've already talked about these five white women and the threat they face from this man who has infiltrated their community and is clearly a vampire, but no one believes them. And we've talked about how they waffle back and forth, taking their concerns seriously and remaining silent and complicit and comfortable in their lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

But then there's this other character, Mrs. Green, who is black and she's been a housemaid to a few of these households in this community. She goes back to the black community and they are being torn apart and victimized by this vampire, and no one is believing them, and everyone is silencing them. And that really, really is the turning point for the women because there's this moment I love where she calls out their privilege and their hypocrisy, that they have the privilege of being able to stay safe and to play along and ignore what's happening, but that isn't a privilege of her community. And so I think she calls out a lot of their false concern or their virtue signaling.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

I think something's interesting. How long ago did you read this book?

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Five months ago.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Five months ago. Okay. And the thing that sticks out to you is that she works as a housemaid.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

She's a nurse as well, isn't she?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yes, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

And that's the way she is able to exercise her nursing. The first way she comes in is as a caretaker for Patricia's mother in law who has dementia, Miss Mary. She is a medical professional, but she has to serve as a housemaid. She has to serve cleaning things up. And that is what she's doing. And even with Miss Mary, she brings her medical profession into that household, but she also makes the meals and cleans Miss Mary's area. And periodically watches the kids. So she acts like some of those classic black housemates or nannies, kind of multi-function, I think, of many, many literary characters that fall into that. And she's reduced to that in our minds really easily. And she is so concerned about what's going on that she is willing to put herself in some really horrible circumstances. And she even takes her own children and sends them over an hour away to live with someone else because she wants to protect them. So she makes incredible sacrifices in this book that these women haven't even had to think about. And they disregard her so much.

Mrs. Green, Race, And Credibility

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Yes, they do. And of course, the whole system disregards her when she tries to protect these children that are disappearing. They are called runaways, and even one mother's child who's being victimized, they accuse the mother of abusing her and they take the child away from her.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Because she's black and she must have a boyfriend that's abusing or she's abusing her daughter, and it has nothing to do with some white man that's come into the area.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

And that is the late 80s and the early 90s.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

And I'm sorry, but that reminds me so much of what I see every day in the world.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Where accusations and evidence and concerns continue to compound, and yet all of that biased, that confirmation bias, that dismissiveness of the evidence that should be enraging you, infuriating you, instead you continue to be complicit.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

And I and I think that makes you just as bad as the perpetrator.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Right. So that really throws me off into this next topic that I was interested in asking you about. And that is what does it take for a woman's fear to be taken seriously? Like what we get here with Brady Hendricks is we get the context of horror with this vampire. And essentially, to a certain extent, even providing dead bodies is almost not enough for the women to be taken seriously. So what does it take? Like, is this aspect of horror that he creates and this truly these heinous things that happen and then finally come all the way into the face of the other women and they feel forced to deal with it? Is that the only time women can be taken seriously? Do you feel like they're ever taken seriously by their husbands?

SPEAKER_00 24:23

No.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

So what does it take?

SPEAKER_00 24:25

I think it takes a movement. I think it takes rage with the patriarchal status quo. I think it's going to take a lot, honestly. And I I think we're going to have to hurt ourselves to heal because when we hold these powerful men accountable, even though they say, oh, well, if we held them all accountable, can you imagine the systemic fallout? Okay. Okay. Exactly. If we want a more a safer, more equitable world for not just women, but also everyone who's often marginalized, then we are going to have to hurt ourselves to kill because no, you're you're still fighting to have your voice. Every one of those communities is fighting to find their voice.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

I often wonder, and I ask myself, if protest is even enough anymore. Does it take violence to solve violence? And it kind of goes back into the women of Wild Hill. And the ending to this book makes me even more uncomfortable than the women of Wild Hill did. When I got to the end of The Change and the Women of Wild Hill, I thought to myself, okay, yeah, they kind of have to burn down the system, but I was still a little uncomfortable with the idea that we would so freely dispose of the bad people. Then we get into the end of this novel, and without spoiling, we get a very brutal kind of ending. And the book tells you right away that where you come into the world in blood, being born, these women end up being born again in blood. And I was uncomfortable with it. But then what other choice was there? And there's really not. And it really does beg the question what is it going to take to make radical change? And don't, you know, mistake me, the women still are living in this community and dealing with this community post this book endings.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

They haven't changed much.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

They haven't changed much. But in order to end this situation, they had to operate completely out of the realm of any kind of thing that would resemble niceties. And that is a question that I think we're posed all the time. And you we can sit and watch the world get worse around us. And I'm not advocating for illegal action, but we sit and watch the world get worse around us. And what's our responsibility?

What It Takes To Be Believed

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Yeah, I've said this before when I talk about why I read so much and talk about books so much. I think that they are one of the things that allows us to develop our empathy and rehumanize other groups of people. Right. Until we start seeing the humanity in everyone, we aren't going to be able to make the world the place that it needs to be.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Right. And as a literature teacher, I can tell you that people are reading less and less. And I do agree with you. I think whether we can get people to read great works of literature or whether it is a book like the Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, people need to read. Because how else do you expose yourself to other ideas and other places and other people, other perspectives without delving in to that through literature? That is really the way we do it. How many people get to go travel the world? Not many of us. You know, so we we see the world and we understand the world and we embrace the ideas of others by reading literature and understanding where other people are coming from. And people aren't reading. Like there are fewer and fewer students in my classroom that I would call readers. And it's not entirely their fault. We have allowed electronics and everything else to take such complete control of our society that a TikTok is far more interesting to me than sitting down and reading pages in a book.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Yeah, it's a problem because even though we aren't reading, we're still getting a constant narrative.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

We are.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

And that narrative is boiling down the value of a human life and its incredibly long journey, its ups and downs, its successes and failures. And it's boiling it down to a politician's opinion about its value or a video clip that's 15 seconds long caught on somebody's cell phone. That's tragic.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

It doesn't encompass the human experience at all.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

No. And only books allow us to see the world through another person's eyes and walk their shoes and develop that empathy. Or simply going back to having real relationships with one another that are more intimate than the social media experience that we're getting.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

I remember 20 years ago talking to my students about just texting and the nature of text messages and how it's easier to say something really awful to someone through text than it is to their face. And that was 20 years ago. And now we've advanced so far in the way we absorb things and the way we communicate and the way we're even fooled by what we see in videos, and we have completely lost the ability to interact in a normal social way or to actually sustain attention on something of value. Okay, I feel like we could talk about this book forever, but to begin to wrap this conversation up and trust our listeners to go and read. What are your final thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Grady Hendrix is intentionally tackling a number of social issues in the guise of a vampire story. We often pull out all of these things that we discuss, but these are really in your face. And so there is a ton to process when reading this book that is much bigger than your traditional vampire tale. And it makes us think about how women of an older age grew up with certain social expectations and therefore oppression.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

And how generations still negotiate with that history, even to this day. And so we should think about that. How now that also affects us how we engage today and how we're being affected by those systems that have been in place for so long.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

And I absolutely agree. I think this will raise so many issues for you and so many thoughts as you're reading it. It will also incite a lot of emotions. And on that note, what book are we going to discuss next time?

SPEAKER_00 30:23

We're going to go for a discussion of James by Percival Everett.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

And I'm really excited because, of course, I've taught Huckleberry Finn for years. And if you don't know, James is a book about Jim's perspective. And so this will be great and a great vehicle for discussion for this month in particular, but a great vehicle for discussion all the time. So until then, keep reading because it makes you empathetic, and keep thinking, and we look forward to talking to you again.