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shishuraj 's review for:
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
by Stephen Graham Jones
“What I am is the Indian who can’t die.
I’m the worst dream America ever had.”
This was going to be four stars until THAT chapter (you’ll know when you read it) hit me like a sledgehammer. I had to bump the rating after that. It’s the most emotional I’ve gotten from a fiction book all year. What I thought was going to be a fairly straightforward revenge fantasy turned out to be much more: The tragic story of a man trying to claw his way back to a time place and people that don’t exist anymore. About the pain of assimilation that indigenous people have had to go through and the pestilence that the Europeans brought to their shores.
The archaic diary entry style might put people off but I was fine with it, it hearkens back to Lovecraft, even though Stephen Graham Jones doesn’t list him as one of his inspirations in the acknowledgement. the red color of the paper edges serves as an archaic reference and a foreboding of the blood about to be spilt in the narrative at the same time.
If you’ve ever seen that image of an American soldier standing next to hundreds of bison skulls (meant to starve the natives by killing off their primary food source), then you should read this book. Easily my favorite work from Jones so far. His darkest and saddest.
“You put your reminders of pain on the wall and pray to them. We still hurt, so we don’t need that reminder.”
I’m the worst dream America ever had.”
This was going to be four stars until THAT chapter (you’ll know when you read it) hit me like a sledgehammer. I had to bump the rating after that. It’s the most emotional I’ve gotten from a fiction book all year. What I thought was going to be a fairly straightforward revenge fantasy turned out to be much more: The tragic story of a man trying to claw his way back to a time place and people that don’t exist anymore. About the pain of assimilation that indigenous people have had to go through and the pestilence that the Europeans brought to their shores.
The archaic diary entry style might put people off but I was fine with it, it hearkens back to Lovecraft, even though Stephen Graham Jones doesn’t list him as one of his inspirations in the acknowledgement. the red color of the paper edges serves as an archaic reference and a foreboding of the blood about to be spilt in the narrative at the same time.
If you’ve ever seen that image of an American soldier standing next to hundreds of bison skulls (meant to starve the natives by killing off their primary food source), then you should read this book. Easily my favorite work from Jones so far. His darkest and saddest.
“You put your reminders of pain on the wall and pray to them. We still hurt, so we don’t need that reminder.”