The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones – A Book Review

Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter gave me something I honestly didn’t think I needed: a completely new take on the vampire.

The notion of an American Indian vampire immediately grabbed me, but Jones does far more with the idea than simply transplant Dracula into a different culture. Setting much of the story during the early days of the American West allows him to juxtapose the vampire’s hunger with the United States government’s own insatiable need for more—more land, more control, more everything. I thought that parallel worked incredibly well.

I also loved the way Jones shifted his writing style between Lutheran pastor Arthur Beaucarne and Good Stab, the Indian vampire at the heart of the story. Their voices are distinctly their own, which made the changes in perspective feel meaningful rather than gimmicky.

Best of all, Jones found genuinely new things to do with vampirism. Considering how thoroughly vampires have been explored in fiction, that’s no small accomplishment.

My only real complaint is the bookending material involving academic Etsy Beaucarne. I never became invested in her or her connection to the larger story, and I don’t think the novel needed her. If anything, those sections detracted from the wonderfully dark tone of everything in between.

Overall, though, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is inventive, unsettling, and unlike any vampire novel I’ve read before.