The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

This chilling historical novel is set in the nascent days of the state of Montana, following a Blackfeet Indian named Good Stab as he haunts the fields of the Blackfeet Nation looking for justice.

It begins when a diary written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall in 2012. What is unveiled is a slow massacre, a nearly forgotten chain of events that goes back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow, told in the transcribed interviews with Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar and unnaturally long life over a series of confessional visits.

This is an American Indian revenge story, captured in the vivid voices of the time, by one of the new masters of literary horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
• Published by: S&G/Saga Press on March 18, 2025
• Genre: Horror, historical fiction
• Pages: 448
• Dates/Time Read: 6.23.25 – 6.30.25 (8 days); 15 hours 29 minutes
• Format: Hardcover (Owlcrate edition), physical copy
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• ⭐½
• ☠☠

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**This review DOES include spoilers**
This book was hands down one of the weirdest things I think I have ever read! This was my first Stephen Graham Jones novel. I’d heard of him before, and heard good things. I can’t speak to the rest of his books, but I wasn’t a fan of this book at all. There was a lot of weirdness and gore, but very little “horror” in my opinion. I felt lost, confused, and annoyed for the majority of this book. The writing style, for me, was off-putting. Even though I say that, I can appreciate that it was written in a way that matched the period of the setting and the characters. Most of the book takes place during the late 1800s and early 1900s, which has never been one of my favorite writing style periods. If you are a fan of this style and love works by authors such as Mark Twain and Charles Dickens, with their complex sentence structures and overly detailed descriptions of things, then you’ll probably enjoy the book. For me…it just felt like a book that went on and on and on….and on lol. While I’m on the subject of the writing, unless you’re incredibly familiar with Native American language and history, keep Google handy so that you can translate a lot of the terms. I didn’t until much later in the book, and it’s a large reason why I found myself confused so often.

I consider myself an intelligent person, but I’ll be the first to admit that history isn’t my strong suit. Which is why I think that historical fiction has become one of my new favorite genres of books to read. I love learning about history that way. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a historical fiction horror story, but I had no idea that the events in the book were actual events that the author was referencing. Obviously, I am aware of the atrocities that were befallen on the Native Americans when the Europeans invaded their lands, and am aware there were a lot of dark things done to them. But I was ignorant of the fact that the massacre that is so frequently referenced in the book was the Marias Massacre of the Piegan Blackfeet Native tribe. This isn’t a huge deal, but I just felt like the author could have done a better job of making this more obvious, but perhaps he meant to leave it vague. I did recognize the reference to the ill-fated Titanic ship that sank in 1912, but…why? Why did he even include this part in the story? The whole plot that revolved around The Titanic was that one of the local citizens of the town had invested money in the ship, and when it sank, it drove him to commit suicide. I’m still sitting here wondering…did I miss something here? Like, what was the point of that? And the way that he commits suicide, which is hanging himself with the help of his horse, the deputy sheriff that shows up when the body is found, shoots the horse in the head!! WHY!?! If animal cruelty is a hard limit for you in books, then I’ll tell you right now, you’ll want to avoid this book at all costs.

What I am is the Indian who can’t die. I’m the worst dream America ever had.

Besides the above-mentioned things, the major reason that I gave the book the rating I gave it was that I found so many inconsistencies, weirdness, and unexplained connections. I’m even willing to bet that these things are explained and were consistent, but it went over my head. That’s one of the reasons this writing style has never been one of my favorites, because you have to be able to find the underlying meanings. Things aren’t spelled out for you, and it’s easy to miss the hints given in the lengthy words and complex sentences. But there were many times when the characters were unreliable, or able to know things that just didn’t make any sense in how they would know that. Also, who the hell was Napi?! Was he the “cat man”? It was like he was just there to help, but we never even understood who he was, why he was there. And if he’s not Cat Man, or even if he is, why does Cat Man go through the whole process of torturing Good Stab? It made no sense, and just seemed like a part of the plot that just ate up pages, and had less to do with the plot.

What finally sealed the deal on my rating for the book was that ending. It was…bizarre! Just close your eyes and envision this scene: a human-sized prairie dog, being handed a lit cigarette by his great-great-great-great-granddaughter, whom he has never met, and she and he try to set the cigarette in between his little prairie dog fingers so that he can smoke it and commit suicide. When she realizes this isn’t enough to curb Good Stab’s revenge on him, she decides to go to the hardware store, buy supplies, and drive from Colorado to Montana in the middle of a horrible snowstorm. With her cat, no less! She arrives on the anniversary of the massacre, and kills her great-grandfather, cutting off his prairie dog head, and raises it up in the air to show Good Stab what she had done. He turns around and rides off into the sunset on his horse. I was taking notes during the reading of this book, and what I wrote when I finished was, and I quote…”WTF did I just read?!” haha So that should tell ya!

I’m sorry! I know that this was a book about revenge for what was done to Native Americans, but for me, it was just too weird and far out there for me to enjoy. I felt like Stephen Graham Jones could have done a better job of trying to bring attention to this tragic story from our history.