Spooky Season Reviews: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones

    In The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones’ writes a veritable masterclass in how to take an ancient (and sometimes exhausted) plot device such as the literary vampire and both turn it on its head while also remaining true and faithful to the kinds of tropes that fans have come to expect. With its narrative structure, an epistolary-style novel told mostly in journal entries and flashbacks, recalling everything from Stoker’s Dracula to Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, the novel immediately connects itself to the canon of vampire literature while at the same time, by setting his story in the American west with a Native American vampire telling his tale, he makes it new while also injecting it with not-so-subtle commentary on the erasure of Native culture, the enduring power of guilt, the curse of vengeance, and yes, some gory, gooey, vampire fun.

            The novel opens with Communications Professor Etsy Beaucarne being asked to study a recently discovered manuscript written by a distant ancestor, a Lutheran minister named Arthur Beaucarne, written in the 1800s. In a well-crafted tale-within-a-tale-within-a-tale-within-a-tale, Beaucarne’s manuscript, written during his time in Miles City, Montana, describes his encounter with a mysterious Blackfoot Indian named Good Stab, who wishes Beaucarne to hear his confession, in essence, a long, shocking, and violent tale of how he became a vampire and his subsequent mission to annihilate hunters of the sacred buffalo. Beaucarne finds Good Stab’s horrid tale unbelievable at first, but as he becomes increasingly convinced that Good Stab is also responsible for a recent slate of deaths in the town, coupled with other strange, unignorable occurrences, he gets drawn farther and farther into the tale, a tale that has more to do with him than he would have realized, or wished to be true. Throughout the course of the novel, we learn more and more about Beaucarne’s own tragic and highly problematic past, interspersed among Good Stab’s irrevocable journey into vampirism, learning what he can and cannot do, learning to succumb with his insatiable thirst for blood, and his battles with the enigmatic Cat Man, the vampire at the center of his own transformation. The novel reaches its climax when the truth about Beaucarne and his connection to Good Stab is ultimately revealed, circling back to his descendant Etsy and how it becomes her responsibility to make the past as “right” as possible.

            Good Stab is a tragic hero, his story, and the story of his becoming a vampire is intertwined with the erasure of his people, culture, and the settling of his land by the Napikwans, a name the Blackfoot use for white people.  Jones, himself a Blackfoot Indian, always weaves the past history and current conditions of Native peoples into his horror, and perhaps never so expertly as he does it here in this novel. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is part historical-fiction, part entertaining vampire yarn, perfect for Spooky Season while remaining thought-provoking. The novel gives a haunting portrayal of the consequences of the past, generational trauma, and a desire for retribution as insatiable and as consequential as the vampire’s thirst for blood. Yet the novel still remains fun and creepy because Jones himself is such a fan of horror.

            Jones’ vampires are partly traditional in nature, while being unique. I didn’t love every addition to the canon, but Jones more than makes up with it with other moments in the book. The bookended parts of the book that take place in the 21^st century felt distracting at first, but ultimately tie into the aforementioned themes of the novel, as well as tying it to its literary ancestors.

            In The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones has crafted a thought-provoking narrative that dives deep into our problematic past, using two men as vehicles for themes that still resonate today. It should be read.