This Bloody Revenge-Inspired Spin on Vampires Will Leave You Thirsty For More

The novel opens with a frame narrative. It’s the story of a woman named Etsy teaching at a university and trying to earn tenure. When she’s granted access to a newly-unearthed journal from over a century ago penned by her great-great-grandfather, she seizes it as an opportunity to secure her job status. But what she discovers in this journal is nothing she could have expected.

Her ancestor, Lutheran pastor Arthur Beaucarne, opens his tale amidst a series of disturbing murders in 1912 Montana. As the local authorities attempt to discover the killer in their midst, Arthur begins hearing the confessions of a new member of his congregation–a Native American man called Good Stab. As Good Stab’s incredible tale unfolds, it brings 19th century colonial histories of genocide into the 20th century.

Deeper and deeper into the past we go, and as we do, SGJ’s inventive and bloody tale unfolds with increasing suspense. This is one of those books you don’t realize you can’t put down until you try to.

I love the way this novel traverses time, bringing the deep past together with the present. In so doing, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a violent kind of horror story that also manages to humanize the dark deeds of the nation’s past. Good Stab’s tales of the intentional slaughter of the buffalo highlight the US government’s involvement in the annihilation of the buffalo. If you’re not familiar with this history, the National Parks Service explains that “Federal officials recognized the importance of bison on the Plains,” with led to the Army providing “free ammunition to hide hunters, who brought bison to the brink of extinction.” As the narrative unfolds, it’s not just the nation’s past that comes to light; it’s also Good Stab’s and Arthur’s. It feels strange to say, but the way this novel weaves the two togetherand the way they collide with Etsy’s story–makes these ugly histories feel more palpable than traditional historical fiction.

The novel is great for people who love history and politics…but it’s also just a damn good story.

One of my favorite things about this book is that it’s a really fresh way to do vampires. As with so much of SGJ’s writing, it’s incredibly visceral. At the same time, Jones creates a mythology that taps into and also revamps (pun totally intended) existing Stoker-esque conventions. There’s some of the usual vampire lore, such as the familiar aversion to daylight and the morally conflicted transformation from human to monster. But there’s also some fascinating new lore to add to the oeuvre of vampire literature, like the vampire taking on the physical characteristics of the creatures and people it feeds on.

I was especially impressed by the way the immortality of vampirism works here. In the context of settler colonialism, this becomes a powerful thing. I’m thinking here of Eve Tuck and C. Ree’s ideas on hauntings in contemporary horror cinema. They talk about how against the backdrop of settler colonialism, a lot of these hauntings are justified because the ghosts and monsters who haunt were created as a direct result of the United States’ past violences (think: genocide, enslavement, dispossession). In this framing, they understand the monster’s thirst for revenge as a process of “wronging wrongs” — a kind of justice all its own. That means those being pursued by the monster really just have to live with what haunts the nation because we can’t change the past, so maybe we have to acknowledge that this monster has every right to be haunting us. And within the context of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Good Stab certainly has every right to his h(a)unting.

If you like vampire horror, or if you’re a history buff, or if you live in the United States, there’s something here for you. Simply want a good story that will get your blood pumping and nerves tingling? You’ll eat The Buffalo Hunter Hunter right up.