REVIEW: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

REVIEW: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Unsurprisingly, another banger from Stephen Graham Jones, this time including vampires, a lovable buffalo, and a sweeping colonial revenge story that I can’t help but to believe will be a new classic.

The story is set in 1912 American West and follows the testimony (or in this tale, gospel) of Good Stab, a Blackfeet vampire who meets with a Lutheran pastor nightly to confess his story and detail the wrongs done by him – and to him. It’s Interview with a Vampire meets Deadwood, but there’s so much more to it.

Let’s start with the vampires. It’s hard to mine new material out of this classic monster, but Jones has done just that. The monster here shares the usual vampire flair (fangs, blood sucking, immortal, etc.), but adds a consequence to the feeding. The more of something they consume, the more they assimilate their prey. Not just the appearance of humans, either, it’s anything they consume. In this vampire origin story, what starts with the usual new-vampire promise of “I’ll just hunt animals” like buffalo and deer result in the beginnings of horns and fur. You are what you eat, quite literally. This fits so well in a story of revenge and western expansion. Feeding on the white oppressors enough leads to being indistinguishable from those same villains. And more tragically with Good Stab, keeping his Blackfeet identity requires feeding on his own people. 

Identity is a huge theme here, and not only in the story itself. The distinct voices of the three narrators was immediately impressive. After Jones’ recent, contemporary Indian Lake Trilogy it was such a treat to go back in time with both the Lutheran pastor and Good Stab, each with their own perspective and way of thinking. Structurally this back and forth was exciting and evocative, a call and response with many of the themes tackled, and really challenged the reader to reckon with who the most reliable narrator was. 

These point-of-view recollections, while effective in character building, did feel drawn out at times. Long stretches of characters lost in the wilderness (figuratively and literally speaking) were challenging, but it all leads to a conclusion that delivers a shocking, satisfying ending. Truly, hats off for this one.  As always, in Stephen we trust.