The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires – NPR

Chapter 1

In 1988, George H. W. Bush had just won the presidential electionby inviting everyone to read his lips while Michael Dukakis lost itby riding in a tank. Dr. Huxtable was America&;s dad, Kate & Alliewere America&;s moms, The Golden Girls were America&;s grandmoms,McDonald&;s announced it was opening its first restaurant in the SovietUnion, everyone bought Stephen Hawking&;s A Brief History ofTime and didn&;t read it, Phantom of the Opera opened on Broadway,and Patricia Campbell got ready to die. She sprayed her hair, put on her earrings, and blotted her lipstick,but when she looked at herself in the mirror she didn&;t seea housewife of thirty-ninewith two children and a bright future,she saw a dead person. Unless war broke out, the oceans rose, or theearth fell into the sun, tonight was the monthly meeting of the LiteraryGuild of Mt. Pleasant, and she hadn&;t read this month&;s book.And she was the discussant. Which meant that in less than ninetyminutes she would stand up in front of a room full of women andlead them in a conversation about a book she hadn&;t read. She had meant to read Cry, the Beloved Country&;honestly&;butevery time she picked up her copy and read There is a lovely roadthat runs from Ixopo into the hills, Korey rode her bike off the endof the dock because she thought that if she pedaled fast enough shecould skim across the water, or she set her brother&;s hair on firetrying to see how close she could get a match before it caught, orshe spent an entire weekend telling everyone who called that hermother couldn&;t come to the phone because she was dead, whichPatricia only learned about when people started showing up at thefront door with condolence casseroles. Before Patricia could discover why the road that runs fromIxopo was so lovely, she&;d see Blue run past the sun porch windowsbuck naked, or she&;d realize the house was so quiet because she&;dleft him at the downtown library and had to jump in the Volvo andfly back over the bridge, praying that he hadn&;t been kidnapped byMoonies, or because he&;d decided to see how many raisins he couldfit up his nose (twenty-four).She never even learned where Ixopowas exactly because her mother-in-law,Miss Mary, moved in withthem for a six-weekvisit and the garage room had to have cleantowels, 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 oneof those bars installed and she had to find somebody to do that, andthe children had laundry that needed to be done, and Carter had tohave his shirts ironed, and Korey wanted new soccer cleats becauseeveryone else had them but they really couldn&;t afford them rightnow, and Blue was only eating white food so she had to make riceevery night for supper, and the road to Ixopo ran on to the hillswithout her. Joining the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant had seemed like a goodidea at the time. Patricia realized she needed to get out of the houseand meet new people the moment she leaned over at supper withCarter&;s boss and tried to cut up his steak for him. A book club madesense because she liked reading, especially mysteries. Carter had suggestedit was because she went through life as if the entire worldwere a mystery to her, and she didn&;t disagree: Patricia Campbell andthe Secret of Cooking Three Meals a Day, Seven Days a Week, withoutLosing Your Mind. Patricia Campbell and the Case of the Five-Year-OldChild Who Keeps Biting Other People. Patricia Campbell and the Mysteryof Finding Enough Time to Read the Newspaper When You HaveTwo Children and a Mother-in-LawLiving with You and EveryoneNeeds Their Clothes Washed, and to Be Fed, and the House Needs toBe Cleaned and Someone Has to Give the Dog His Heartworm Pills andYou Should Probably Wash Your Own Hair Every Few Days or YourDaughter Is Going to Ask Why You Look Like a Street Person. A fewdiscreet inquiries, and she&;d been invited to the inaugural meeting ofthe Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant at Marjorie Fretwell&;s house. The Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant picked their books for thatyear in a very democratic process: Marjorie Fretwell invited themto 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 SlickPaley, who seemed chronically unable to read social cues. &;I&;d like to nominate Like Lambs to the Slaughter: Your Child andthe Occult,&; Slick said. &;With that crystal store on Coleman Boulevardand Shirley MacLaine on the cover of Time magazine talkingabout her past lives, we need a wake-upcall.&; &;I&;ve never heard of it,&; Marjorie Fretwell said. &;So I imagine itfalls outside our mandate of reading the great books of the Westernworld. Anyone else?&; &;But&;&;Slick protested. &;Anyone else?&; Marjorie repeated. They selected the books Marjorie wrote down for them, assignedeach book to the month Marjorie thought best, and pickedthe discussants Marjorie thought were most appropriate. The discussantwould open the meeting by delivering a twenty-minutepresentationon the book, its background, and the life of its author, thenlead the group discussion. A discussant could not cancel or tradebooks with anyone else without paying a stiff fine because the LiteraryGuild of Mt. Pleasant was not fooling around.When it became clear she wasn&;t going to be able to finish Cry,the Beloved Country, Patricia called Marjorie. &;Marjorie,&; she said over the phone while putting a lid on therice and turning it down from a boil. &;It&;s Patricia Campbell. I needto talk to you about Cry, the Beloved Country.&; &;Such a powerful work,&; Marjorie said. &;Of course,&; Patricia said. &;I know you&;ll do it justice,&; Marjorie said. &;I&;ll do my best,&; Patricia said, realizing that this was the exactopposite of what she needed to say. &;And it&;s so timely with the situation in South Africa right now,&;Marjorie said. A cold bolt of fear shot through Patricia: what was the situationin South Africa right now? After she hung up, Patricia cursed herself for being a coward anda fool, and vowed to go to the library and look up Cry, the BelovedCountry in the Directory of World Literature, but she had to do snacksfor Korey&;s soccer team, and the babysitter had mono, and Carterhad a sudden trip to Columbia and she had to help him pack, andthen a snake came out of the toilet in the garage room and she hadto beat it to death with a rake, and Blue drank a bottle of Wite-Outand 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 theirWorld Book Encyclopedia but they were missing the P volume. Shemade a mental note that they needed new encyclopedias. The doorbell rang. &;Mooooom,&; Korey called from the downstairs hall. &;Pizza&;shere!&; She couldn&;t put it off any longer. It was time to face Marjorie.

Marjorie had handouts. &;These are just a few articles about current events in South Africa,including the recent unpleasantness in Vanderbijlpark,&; shesaid. &;But I think Patricia will sum things up nicely for us in herdiscussion of Mr. Alan Paton&;s Cry, the Beloved Country.&; Everyone turned to stare at Patricia sitting on Marjorie&;s enormouspink-and-whitesofa. Not being familiar with the design ofMarjorie&;s home, she had put on a floral dress and felt like all anyonesaw were her head and hands floating in midair. She wished shecould pull them into her dress and disappear completely. She felt hersoul exit her body and hover up by the ceiling. &;But before she begins,&; Marjorie said, and every head turnedback her way, &;let&;s have a moment of silence for Mr. Alan Paton.His passing earlier this year has shaken the literary world as much asit&;s shaken me.&; Patricia&;s brain chased itself in circles: the author was dead? Recently?She hadn&;t seen anything in the paper. What could she say?How had he died? Was he murdered? Torn apart by wild dogs?Heart attack? &;Amen,&; Marjorie said. &;Patricia?&; Patricia&;s soul decided that it was no fool and ascended into theafterlife, leaving her at the mercy of the women surrounding her.There was Grace Cavanaugh, who lived two doors down fromPatricia but whom she&;d only met once when Grace rang her doorbelland said, &;I&;m sorry to bother you, but you&;ve lived here for sixmonths and I need to know: is this the way you intend for your yardto look?&; Slick Paley blinked rapidly, her sharp foxy face and tiny eyesglued to Patricia, her pen poised above her notebook. LouiseGibbes cleared her throat. Cuffy Williams blew her nose slowly intoa Kleenex. Sadie Funche leaned forward, nibbling on a cheese straw,eyes boring into Patricia. The only person not looking at Patriciawas Kitty Scruggs, who eyed the bottle of wine in the center of thecoffee table that no one had dared open. &;Well . . . ,&; Patricia began. &;Didn&;t we all love Cry, the BelovedCountry?&; Sadie, Slick, and Cuffy nodded. Patricia glanced at her watch andsaw that seven seconds had passed. She could run out the clock. Shelet the silence linger hoping someone would jump in and say something,but the long pause only prompted Marjorie to say, &;Patricia?&; &;It&;s so sad that Alan Paton was cut down in the prime of his lifebefore writing more novels like Cry, the Beloved Country,&; Patriciasaid, feeling her way forward, word by word, guided by the nods ofthe other women. &;Because this book has so many timely and relevantthings to say to us now, especially after the terrible events inVander . . . Vanderbill . . . South Africa.&; The nodding got stronger. Patricia felt her soul descending backinto her body. She forged ahead. &;I wanted to tell you all about Alan Paton&;s life,&; she said. &;Andwhy he wrote this book, but all those facts don&;t express how powerfulthis story is, how much it moved me, the great cry of outrageI felt when I read it. This is a book you read with your heart, notwith your mind. Did anyone else feel that way?&; The nods were general, all over the living room. &;Exactly.&; Slick Paley nodded. &;Yes.&; &;I feel so strongly about South Africa,&; Patricia said, and thenremembered that Mary Brasington&;s husband was in banking andJoanie Wieter&;s husband did something with the stock market andthey might have investments there. &;But I know there are manysides to the issue, and I wonder if anyone wanted to present anotherpoint of view. In the spirit of Mr. Paton&;s book, this should bea conversation, not a speech.&; Everyone was nodding. Her soul settled back into her body. Shehad done it. She had survived. Marjorie cleared her throat. &;Patricia,&; Marjorie asked. &;What did you think about what thebook had to say about Nelson Mandela?&; &;So inspirational,&; Patricia said. &;He simply towers over everything,even though he&;s really just mentioned.&; &;I don&;t believe he is,&; Marjorie said, and Slick Paley stoppednodding. &;Where did you see him mentioned? On which page?&; Patricia&;s soul began ascending into the light again. Good-bye,itsaid. Good-bye,Patricia. You&;re on your own now . . . &;His spirit of freedom?&; Patricia said. &;It pervades every page?&; &;When this book was written,&; Marjorie said. &;Nelson Mandelawas still a law student and a minor member of the ANC. I&;m notsure how his spirit could be anywhere in this book, let alone pervadingevery page.&; Marjorie drilled into Patricia&;s face with her ice-pickeyes. &;Well,&; Patricia croaked, because she was dead now and apparentlydeath felt very, very dry. &;What he was going to do. Youcould feel it building. In here. In this book. That we read.&; &;Patricia,&; Marjorie said. &;You didn&;t read the book, did you?&; Time stopped. No one moved. Patricia wanted to lie, but a lifetimeof breeding had made her a lady. &;Some of it,&; Patricia said. Marjorie let out a soul-deepsigh that seemed to go on forever. &;Where did you stop?&; she asked. &;The first page?&; Patricia said, then began to babble. &;I&;m sorry,I know I&;ve let you down, but the babysitter had mono, and Carter&;smother is staying with us, and a snake came out of the commode,and everything&;s just been so hard this month. I really don&;tknow what to say except I&;m so, so sorry.&; Black crept in around the edges of her vision. A high-pitchedtone shrilled in her right ear. &;Well,&; Marjorie said. &;You&;re the one who&;s lost out, by robbingyourself of what is possibly one of the finest works of worldliterature. And you&;ve robbed all of us of your unique point of view.But what&;s done is done. Who else would be willing to lead thediscussion?&; Sadie Funche retracted into her Laura Ashley dress like a turtle,Nancy Fox started shaking her head before Marjorie even reachedthe end of her sentence, and Cuffy Williams froze like a prey animalconfronted by a predator. &;Did anyone actually read this month&;s book?&; Marjorie asked. Silence. &;I cannot believe this,&; Marjorie said. &;We all agreed, elevenmonths ago, to read the great books of the Western world and now,less than one year later, we&;ve come to this. I am deeply disappointedin all of you. I thought we wanted to better ourselves, expose ourselvesto thoughts and ideas from outside Mt. Pleasant. The men allsay, &;It&;s not too clever for a girl to be clever,&; and they laugh at usand think we only care about our hair. The only books they giveus are cookbooks because in their minds we are silly, lightweightknow-nothings.And you&;ve just proven them right.&; She stopped to catch her breath. Patricia noticed sweat glisteningin her eyebrows. Marjorie continued: &;I strongly suggest y&;all go home and think about whether youwant to join us next month to read Jude the Obscure and&;&; Grace Cavanaugh stood, hitching her purse over one shoulder. &;Grace?&; Marjorie asked. &;Are you not staying?&; &;I just remembered an appointment,&; Grace said. &;It entirelyslipped my mind.&; &;Well,&; Marjorie said, her momentum undermined. &;Don&;t letme keep you.&; &;I wouldn&;t dream of it,&; Grace said. And with that, the tall, elegant, prematurely gray Grace floatedout of the room. Robbed of its velocity, the meeting dissolved. Marjorie retreatedto the kitchen, followed by a concerned Sadie Funche. A dispiritedclump of women lingered around the dessert table making chitchat.Patricia lurked in her chair until no one seemed to be watching,then darted out of the house. As she cut across Marjorie&;s front yard, she heard a noise thatsounded like Hey. She stopped and looked for the source. &;Hey,&; Kitty Scruggs repeated. Kitty lurked behind the line of parked cars in Marjorie&;s driveway,a cloud of blue smoke hovering over her head, a long thin cigarettebetween her fingers. Next to her stood Maryellensomething-or-other,also smoking. Kitty waved Patricia over with one hand. Patricia knew that Maryellenwas a Yankee from Massachusettswho told everyone that she was a feminist. And Kitty was one ofthose big women who wore the kind of clothes people charitablyreferred to as &;fun&;&;baggysweaters with multicolored handprintson them, chunky plastic jewelry. Patricia suspected that getting entangledwith women like this was the first step on a slippery slopethat ended with her wearing felt reindeer antlers at Christmas, orstanding outside Citadel Mall asking people to sign a petition, so sheapproached them with caution. &;I liked what you did in there,&; Kitty said. &;I should have found time to read the book,&; Patricia told her. &;Why?&; Kitty asked. &;It was boring. I couldn&;t make it past thefirst chapter.&; &;I need to write Marjorie a note,&; Patricia said. &;To apologize.&; Maryellensquinted against the smoke and sucked on hercigarette. &;Marjorie got what she deserved,&; she said, exhaling. &;Listen.&; Kitty placed her body between the two of them andMarjorie&;s front door, just in case Marjorie was watching and couldread lips. &;I&;m having some people read a book and come over tomy house next month to talk about it. Maryellen&;llbe there.&; &;I couldn&;t possibly find the time to belong to two book clubs,&;Patricia said. &;Trust me,&; Kitty said. &;After today, Marjorie&;s book club isdone.&; &;What book are you reading?&; Patricia asked, groping for reasonsto say no. Kitty reached into her denim shoulder bag and pulled out thekind of cheap paperback they sold at the drugstore. &;Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs,&;she said. It took Patricia aback. This was one of those trashy true crimebooks. But clearly Kitty was reading it and you couldn&;t call someoneelse&;s taste in books trashy, even if it was. &;I&;m not sure that&;s my kind of book,&; Patricia said. &;These two women were best friends and they chopped eachother up with axes,&; Kitty said. &;Don&;t pretend you don&;t want toknow what happened.&; &;Jude is obscure for a reason,&; Maryellengrowled. &;Is it just the two of you?&; Patricia asked. A voice piped up behind her. &;Hey, everyone,&; Slick Paley said. &;What&;re y&;all talking aboutover here?&;

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The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - NPR