Introduction
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones was just such a great read. Honestly, there was so much more to it than I expected. It is a horror novel, and I was expecting vampire, but I hadn’t anticipated just how unique it would be with the Native American perspective — it gave it a much deeper meaning that I thought about for a long time after I finished reading the book.
The Vampire Myth
The story is told predominately through journal entries, and this immediately reminded me of Dracula; this creature is absolutely not Dracula. He is something very original. What I loved is how this story provided some answers to questions I’ve always had about vampires, like ‘Why do they only drink human blood?’
Pacing
The Vampire Hunter Hunter is told at a great pace. Being told through journal entries, it’s like discovering this person along with the character in the story– we are reading the character’s private record of grief, guilt and transformation; it really adds a lot of depth to the characters and to the story in general. It really feels very immersive, so it’s easy to get lost or sucked into to this book!
Horror Literature
There is definitely gore and body horror. Really, its not something I enjoy in a book, despite loving horror! However, while I did wince at these moments, it’s absolutely worth the read even if you aren’t someone who is into gore. This book definitely has a lot of depth- there is emotional truth and historical weight to the story so it isn’t just jump scares. I felt like this book leans towards spooky and soulful, but it does have dark horror themes, too.
Culture, History, and Meaning
One thing that I absolutely loved in this book is that it used horror to speak about real history. I’m just discovering Stephen Graham Jones, and I see that he really weaves Native American identity and cultural memory into his books- at least he did with this one! It’s very seamless, so that you have threads of supernatural and historical weaving together to tell a story that feels meaningful while also being a great scary story.
Characters
I love well-written, believable characters. In this book, they were very real, very flawed, and there wasn’t this idea of a truly good or truly bad character; they were shades of gray. It made reading these journal entries very believable. I could imagine that they were real and while reading, I felt like I really was reading the words of these people from the past.
My Favorite Things
- The originality of the vampire myth
- The journal style narration
- The balance of meaningful writing and horror
- The depth of the culture presented
- The emotional impact of the characters
