The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires characters

Appears from the start

A former nurse living with her husband and children in suburban Charleston. Domestic routines and other people's expectations have narrowed her world, while the true-crime books she reads with friends preserve her curiosity. When disturbing events appear beneath the neighborhood's orderly surface, she is unwilling to dismiss the pattern.

Appears from the start

Patricia's husband, a psychiatrist concerned with career, status, and the appearance of a well-run household. He expects Patricia to manage the children and his declining mother, and his professional authority gives his judgments unusual weight when Patricia raises fears he considers irrational.

Appears from the start

Patricia and Carter's teenage daughter. She is negotiating the pressures of school and popularity while her mother's attention is divided between family duties and an increasingly alarming concern about their new neighbor.

Appears from the start

Patricia and Carter's younger son, an imaginative child whose interests and behavior do not always fit his father's expectations. He depends on Patricia to take his fears seriously.

Appears from the start

Carter's elderly mother, who lives with the Campbell family as her memory and independence decline. Her fragmented recollections sometimes contain details that the other adults treat as confusion.

First appears in chapter 2

One of Patricia's closest friends and a central organizer of their reading group. Controlled, practical, and intensely attentive to social propriety, she knows how the neighborhood's households function and expects plans to be carried out efficiently.

First appears in chapter 2

A member of Patricia's book club whose talkative, warm manner makes her a ready participant in the group's discussions and investigations. Her household is among those drawn into the consequences of Patricia's suspicions.

First appears in chapter 2

A devout member of the book club who measures events against her strong religious convictions. She is cautious about scandal but loyal to the other women when their private concerns become difficult to discuss with their husbands.

First appears in chapter 2

A book-club member whose interests and forthright opinions do not always match the more conventional expectations of the neighborhood. She helps give the group a space where disturbing subjects can be considered seriously.

First appears in chapter 5

A man who arrives in the neighborhood after the death of an elderly relative. Courteous, solitary, and apparently inexperienced with ordinary domestic life, he accepts Patricia's help and soon builds friendly and financial connections with local families.

First appears in chapter 3

An experienced Black woman who works in the Campbell household and has family ties to the nearby Six Mile community. She sees dangers and patterns that the white residents can overlook, and she presses Patricia to consider whose missing children receive attention.

First appears in chapter 10

A young woman from the Six Mile community whose disappearance is treated with far less urgency than a similar event in Patricia's affluent neighborhood would receive. Her fate becomes central to Mrs. Greene's demand that Patricia look beyond her own street.