‘Vampire? Such a provocative word, wrapped in too many clichés and girly novels.’
Such was my hesitation with reading Matt Haig’s newest novel The Radleys. Vampires, surely their time is almost up? As someone who still believes the pinnacle of vampiric pop culture is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’ve somehow managed to avoid the current publishing trend for lovelorn vampires and nasty bloodsuckers. The Radleys, however, manages to take the almost tired vampire myth as a tasty metaphor for repression and moves it into the suburbs.
The Radleys are a family living in a middle-class suburb in Britain. Peter Radley is the local town doctor, longing for the bloody sexual shenanigans of his past, while his wife Helen Radley secretly longs for the vampire that converted her. Their children, Rowan and Clara, are on the verge of discovering exactly what it is that makes them so different from their peers. Clara has gone vegan in an effort to stop animals from being scared of her, only much to the knowing dismay of her parents, it appears to be doing damage to her health than good. Rowan can’t sleep at night, plagued by rashes and a crippling shyness in the face of his schoolboy tormentors. The scene of suburban disguise, where the threat of being unveiled is always present, and sets the intrigue of things to come with hints and clues to let the reader in on the Radleys secrets.
Rowan nods, knowing he could never tell her he has only heard birdsong online, or that he and Clara once spent a good hour watching video footage of chirping sedge-warblers and chaffinches, nearly in tears.
It is only when a sickly Clara leaves a teenage bonfire party, and is followed by a boy who forces himself onto her and she reacts in an unthinkably violent manner that the teenage Radleys secret is revealed to them by their parents. Peter, much to Helen’s reluctance and protests, calls his brother Will. Will refuses the hidden abstainer vampire life, instead living his life like a rebel rocker vampire. Only Will has his own secrets too, and his vicious attacks are just as much a method of hiding from his desires as Peter and Helen’s façade of suburban normality. There is a definite narrative synchronicity here, people and events are neatly connected. It’s as though Clara’s “coming out”, as it were, is all it takes to settle the tenuous image the Radleys have built for themselves, all the lies told in order to construct a coherent identity unravel so easily.
I really loved all the references to classic literature, such as Lord Byron and Thomas de Quincey as vampires living it up as DJs in Ibiza – Don Juan and DJ Opium! Haig switches the narrative voice between the major and minor characters to give readers a complete and varied perspective on the Radleys predicament. Excerpts from a self-help book Peter gives Rowan called The Abstainer’s Handbook also provide a background for the story, as well as being satire of how to beat addiction guides. The story reads quite smoothly, as everyone and everything seems to be connected in convenient ways, however there are also a few surprise twists. The Radleys is a clever analogy for repressed desires and suburbia, if in the end, a little too easy to swallow.
[Disclaimer: publisher supplied proof copy from work. The Radleys is released in Australia by Text Publishing on the 28th June 2010, ISBN: 978-1-921656-41-5]