Horror and History Collide: Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter is a Masterpiece
This year is already off to a great start for me when it comes to horror books. Horror was never really my go-to genre, but I’ve found myself drawn to the genre more and more due to its versatility. When you have numerous sub-genres like historical horror, folk horror, body horror, space horror, gothic horror, and countless others, it’s almost impossible not to find one subgenre that speaks directly to you. For someone who loves historical fiction, I’ve naturally been drawn towards historical horror where stories can seamlessly blend rich historical events and characters with terror, demons, and all manners of horror. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is the latest horror novel from acclaimed author Stephen Graham Jones and while this is only the second novel of his I’ve read, it’s by far my favorite of his.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is an epistolary novel that uses a frame narrative to tell us the story of a mysterious Blackfeet man named Good Stab. The novel begins in 2012 where Etsy Beaucarne, a woman trying to cement her place in her university, finds journals from her great-great grandfather Arthur Beaucarne. Arthur is a Lutheran pastor who records the confessions of Good Stab and recounts pivotal moments of his unnaturally long life. We see the horrors, both supernatural and real, inflicted upon Good Stab and the Blackfeet. Stephen Graham Jones does a masterful job mixing fictional horror within the backdrop of a real historical event, the Marias Massacre. The book has plenty of terrifying moments filled with blood, gore, and disturbing imagery.
Stephen Graham Jones does a phenomenal job giving us an engaging, terrifying vampire horror novel, but he also shines a spotlight on a dark moment in American history. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a powerful horror novel that demands your full attention. It’s a book that challenges you and enlightens you on a dark period of American history, a book that gives voice to Native American history that many of us may not have been familiar with. This is a book that I took my time with, absorbing as much of it as I could to fully appreciate what Jones was conveying. It’s not an easy book, but it’s one that is rewarding, and is one of the best horror novels I’ve read.
