Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians is a chilling historical horror novel tracing the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.
A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.
Review
Nobody writes like that Stephen Graham Jones. That’s not hyperbole, just simple fact. Jones’s voice and style is unique, and his stories unfold in an intensely conversational way, utilizing stream of consciousness, occasional tangents, and prose and dialogue that can prove circuitous and sometimes confusing until an act or deed provides clarity (or the reader just figures it out on their own). As a Blackfeet Native American writer, Jones brings the oral tradition of Indigenous storytelling to his writing, and in doing so has carved out a distinct and special space within the horror genre, writing books that are unlike anything else out there.
His style makes for a comfortable bedfellow with the epistolary technique, with The Buffalo Hunter Hunter unfolding across a series of journal entries from 1912, many of which concern the life of Blackfeet Indian Good Stab and the events of 1870 and the years following that made him the undead man he is. Good Stab has come to the church of Lutheran pastor Arthur Beaucarne, who records the confessions shared with him over a handful of months. The overarching mystery, of course, is why Good Stab has chosen Beaucarne as his confessor and what unites these two men, especially as skinned corpses are discovered in the snowy banks around Miles City, Montana.
On the surface, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a revenge-driven vampire story. The afflicted Good Stab hunts the mountains and prairies for those who have attacked his people and who are hunting buffalo in an effort to eliminate the Native’s dependent on the animals for their survival. There’s plenty of bloody violence, of course, befitting a 21st Century vampire book, but there’s a heck of a lot more going on between the covers here.
What The Buffalo Hunter Hunter really is, is a piece of history being told through the lens of slow-burn historical horror. It’s America’s story, of land stolen, of murders committed, of genocide enacted in the name of white supremacy, as told by the victims of a nation founded on their blood and tears. As one character writes late in the proceedings, “This is an Indian story…and you’re on Indian land whether you admit it or not.” And the vampiric Good Stab, well, he’s “the Indian who can’t die…. the worst dream America ever had.”
Jones’s latest certainly arrives a timely moment with contemporary American politics being what they are. Right-wing school boards and Moms Against Literacy orgs across the country have, for years now, been working to strip history classes of actual historical content and ban books from their libraries in an effort to help make white America even more coddled and unchallenged by facts, the existence of other races and cultures, and the sins of our forefathers. Rather than confront the multifaceted truths of America’s heritage and legacy, the answer of these fascist-loving nutjobs is to sanitize and whitewash the past and silence everyone else. All of which helps make The Buffalo Hunter Hunter a necessary and vital breath of fresh air, as well as a reminder about the power of truth in fiction and the importance of reading diverse voices. It’s awfully crazy that in order to get a better understanding of American history in 2025 and the horrors inflicted upon Indigenous peoples we have to turn to a vampire book, but that’s where we’re at nowadays in post-truth USA where simple facts are decried as woke and evil.
There’s a necessary and righteous undercurrent of anger at the (un)beating and deeply empathetic heart of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter as Jones challenges readers to confront one’s complictness in a violent and ugly past. This may be Jones at his absolute best, too, reminding readers of just how potent a literary powerhouse he can be. By the time he lays all his cards on the table late in the game, it’s one hell of an emotional sucker-punch that has been preceded by a number of incredible moments that eventually give way to startling revelation. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter has long, sharp teeth to sink into readers, but more importantly, it forces you to think and feel. If you disagree, you might want to check your pulse.
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