The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

Patricia has changed, and she is okay with that change. After her ordeal, she has emerged stronger, more thoughtful, and, most importantly, no longer doubting herself. She knows that “what had been destroyed made what remained that much more precious” (404).

The novel leaves several threads of loss, trauma, and psychological impact hanging. We never learn what happened to Wanda Taylor—a minor characters whose experiences at the hands of James Harris provide a mirror to Patricia’s own. Unlike Patricia, who could rely on her wealth, whiteness, and town connections to spirit Korey away to a treatment facility when there is a hint of drug use in the teen’s life, Wanda suffered the destruction of her family when the police came to similar conclusions about Destiny. We never see the restoration of Mrs. Greene’s sons to her home—this Black woman character primarily exists to exhort the white women at the center of the novel to act and her own psychology remains unexplored. We also never find out how Korey has managed to cope with her horrific rape, or whether Blue has extricated himself from fascist right-wing media. By redirecting the last chapter of the novel onto Patricia, Hendrix avoids the complex issues her plot has raised in favor of an optimistic ending.

The novel ends on a reference to Truman Capote’s famous 1966 work of novelistic journalism, In Cold Blood, which details the murders of a Kansas family by a sociopathic drifter and his accomplice. Unlike this family, which was utterly destroyed by a monster, Patricia’s family is intact; though she and Carter are no longer together, we know that she will be a better, stronger mother to Korey and Blue alone.