The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
by Stephen Graham Jones
Thank you to Saga Press and NetGalley for allowing me to
read and review a copy of Stephen Graham Jones’s new book The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. I’ve read a few other books by Stephen Graham Jones, and my favorite
was The Only Good Indians, mostly because it reminded me of a few other
books I’ve previously read. While My Heart is a Chainsaw also wore its
influences on its pages, I felt like it was almost too referential and the
allusions became a little too much for me. It is a creative book, but the
continuous references to slashers took away from the story for me. Thankfully,
this new book has plenty of historical and literary allusions, but also tempers
them so that they do not overwhelm the characters and the plot. In fact, I felt
like this was a highly creative and compelling story where Graham inhabits the
minds and personas of two very different characters. I also enjoyed the frame narrative
that Graham employs to tell his story, using the discovery of a manuscript from
the early 20th century to set the story in motion. Etsy Beaucarne, a
professor of communications, received a manuscript of her ancestor, Arthur
Beaucarne, a Lutheran minister in Montana, who recorded his interactions and
the confessions of Good Stab, an Indian in the town. While I’ve read some
reviews that compared this kind of story within a story to Frankenstein
and even Dracula, where the log of the Demeter essentially tells the
story of what happened on the boat, I actually thought the framing was reminiscent
of Heart of Darkness. However, we learn about Arthur’s story and
experiences through his journal, but we also learn about Good Stab’s background
and history, as well as his confessions through his own recounting to Arthur.
This kind of structure creates some unreliability, but also allows us to see the
events from different perspectives, especially since many history texts have
left out the perspectives of Indians and Indigenous People. Good Stab is somewhat
mysterious, and seems to unnerve Arthur initially, but Arthur also seems to be
harboring some secrets of his own and doesn’t seem to completely fit into the
town. He’s not only different, but some of the men make fun of him. In some ways,
he finds a fellow outcast in Good Stab, an Indian on the periphery of the town,
near where buffalo were nearly hunted to extinction and a massacre of the
Pikuni Tribe previously occurred. Through this framing of the Beaucarne
Manuscript as both a journal and a confession, Graham Jones is able to draw
some initial parallels between the characters of Arthur and Good Stab. However,
as we learn more about Good Stab’s story and origins as a Nachzehrer (I
had to look this German word for a folkloric spirit that can drain the life
from the living—almost like a vampire in Graham Jones’s novel) or catman, we
will eventually learn more about the secrets that Arthur Beaucarne is hiding.
Both Beaucarne and Good Stab have unique voices, and Graham
Jones effectively established characteristic differences between the two.
However, I found it a little hard to adjust to their different styles at first.
For one, Beaucarne writes like an educated member of the upper class from the
late 19th/early 20th century. I found myself a little
lost at times in his musings and observations about the town and Good Stab. As
the story picks up and we learn more about both characters, I think I warmed to
his peripatetic thoughts, but it takes some adjustment. Nevertheless, Graham
Jones authentically re-creates this kind of narrator. I found Good Stab, on the
other hand, more entertaining and endearing. His story about transformation
from a Pikuni whose family is in the Sandhills (the afterworld) into a creature
somewhat like a Vampire is incredible. Graham Jones uses literal names from the
Pikunis (I think) to name animals. For example, Good Stab talks about Long-legs,
swift-runners, and Blackhorns. It took me some time to figure out what these animals
were, but I really enjoyed that kind of language use. It reminded me a lot of
Achebe’s use of Igbo in Things Fall Apart. I also kept coming across the
word napikwan, which sounded familiar. This is where I realized the
similarities with James Welch’s book Fools Crow, which retells
the story of the Marias Massacre and how white settlement (or colonizing) preceded
this massacre of innocent Blackfeet Indians. In many ways, Good Stab is
somewhat like the main character Fools Crow, who also undergoes a renaming and
transformation, mostly due to his stories and exaggerations. I felt that Good
Stab also exaggerated, but we also learn that there is truth to his stories.
Furthermore, we learn that there is also a connection between both Graham Jones’s
and Welch’s novel in that the Marias Massacre plays a part in both books. If
you have the opportunity to read the Acknowledgement section, make sure you do.
Graham Jones talks about visiting Welch’s house and sitting at his desk, which
I thought was really amazing giving that the books both memorialize this
massacre, giving voice to the dead, and trying, in some ways, to bring the dead
back to life.
I’m not completely sure that Good Stab is a vampire, a
Nachzehrer, or a Cat Man, but whatever he is, I can see how his ability to live
forever is both a blessing and a curse. He’s able to continue to tell his story
and recount the atrocities he’s witnessed as settlers continued to overtake the
land of the Blackfeet. However, he also has to rely on others to sustain his
lifeforce. One of the more interesting and creative twists on this story is the
rules that Graham Jones creates for this kind of vampiric creature. I loved how
the creature took on the qualities of what is was feeding on. For example, Good
Stab noticed that as he was drinking the blood of trappers, he began to grow a
beard and his hair color changed. When he drank the blood of animals, like
long-legs, he grew antlers. This was a really cool element of the story, and it
took the trope of a vampire in a new direction. I also enjoyed that this was
also like a revenge story, where Good Stab was pursuing vengeance, not only for
his transformation, but also for his people. In some ways, this part reminded
me of the excellent film Ganja and Hess, which is also a unique
interpretation of the vampire myth. Good Stab is not completely heartless, and
he feels some guilt for some of his victims. He also ends up taking care of a
buffalo calf named Weasel Plume. This showed that Good Stab was a complicated
character, who was capable of both kindness and violence; yet his violence was
also a result of his changed nature and interactions with white society. There’s
a lot to think about and consider with this book.
In addition to being a historical vampire story that deals
with a real-life massacre of Blackfeet Indians, there’s also a mystery
happening in the town. The townspeople are ending up murdered in horrific ways.
I enjoyed this mystery, and Graham Jones’s descriptions of the deaths are
inventive, yet gruesome. For a horror fan, this is a highlight of the book.
Furthermore, Beaucarne is haunted by some of these murdered people he has
encountered, and he’s trying to understand how he’s connected to these murders.
The ending of the book comes back to the modern day, when
things return to Etsy Beaucarne. I also liked her character, even though she’s
limited to the beginning and the end. The last part of the book is interesting,
but I also felt like it was tonally different from the other parts of the book.
Nevertheless, there’s some humor and absurdity that is balanced with the idea of
history and tradition and enabling a voice to emerge from the past that was
mostly suppressed. I loved that Good
Stab could continue to tell his tale and celebrate his people for his long
life. As I was getting towards the end, I also realized that Beaucarne’s name translates
to “Good Meat”, which is also something interesting to think about with his
character and this book. Although the book is a little long and some of the
Beaucarne sections dragged a little with maybe a too-realistic portrayal of a
19th-century clergyman’s observations, it was a creative and compelling book
that also tackles issues of culture and violence, as well as assimilation and
history. This may not be a book for everyone, but I definitely enjoyed it.
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