Book Club: Let's Talk About 'The Buffalo Hunter Hunter'

Summary

---

The Book Review Podcast: Book Club – Let's Talk About ‘The Buffalo Hunter Hunter’

Host: MJ Franklin, with panelists Gilbert Cruz & Joumana Khatib
Original Air Date: October 31, 2025
Main Theme: A deep-dive book club discussion of Stephen Graham Jones’s genre-bending horror novel "The Buffalo Hunter Hunter"—exploring its plot, horror tropes, historical resonance, and the meaning behind its blood-soaked pages.

---

Episode Overview

This special Book Club episode dives into The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones—a horror novel selected for October’s club to celebrate the Halloween season. Host MJ Franklin is joined by editor Gilbert Cruz and writer Joumana Khatib for a passionate, multi-layered conversation. The first half of the episode unpacks the novel in rich, spoiler-free detail, focusing on its innovative take on vampires, historical trauma, and metaphoric complexity. The second half dives into major twists and the controversial animal transformations in the novel’s climax, followed by community reactions and recommended next reads.

---

Book Setup & Non-Spoiler Discussion

Setting the Stage

• Plot Overview (03:08)
  • Joumana introduces the story:
    • Etsy Bokarn, a modern academic seeking tenure, discovers her ancestor's 1912 journal.
    • The ancestor, Arthur Bokarn, is a Lutheran pastor in Montana facing grisly murders and a new, mysterious parishioner—Good Stab, an Indigenous vampire.
    • The narrative unfolds in nested layers: Etsy reading Arthur’s journal, which records Good Stab’s confessions—his origins, the trauma of being turned into a vampire during a violent clash involving the figure King Catman.

Panelist Reactions & Key Themes

• Horror & Historical Layers (05:55)

  • Gilbert:

    • Finds the novel “extremely satisfying,” even for a seasoned vampire fan.
    • Appreciates the historical twist: “Jones makes the vampire a metaphor for the avenging Angel...how it would have been great as white people were taking over this land...if there was something that indigenous people could have done to fight back.” (07:20)

  • Joumana:

    • Not typically a horror reader; expected to be overwhelmed by the gore but found the alienation of Good Stab “unbearable” and more affecting than violence:

      “He talks about the profound alienation from his tribe, from his family...I was like, oh my God, I don’t know if I can keep reading this. This is so heartbreaking.” (08:21)

• Innovations in Vampire Lore (10:02)

  • Jones plays with classic vampire tropes, introducing new rules:

    • Vampires are allergic to tobacco smoke.
    • They “are what they eat”—feeding on different prey literally changes their bodies (white-tailed spots, skin color, etc).
    • If Good Stab feeds on white settlers, he physically and spiritually shifts toward whiteness, deepening his alienation.

  • Gilbert:

    • Praises the “ingenious” moral dilemmas and metaphorical richness tied to hunger, transformation, and assimilation.

• Literary & Cinematic Imagery (14:01)

  • Panelists highlight powerful, memorable scenes—like Good Stab standing in a bull's insides by the fire—calling the violence and visuals “Tarantino-esque,” and loaded with both narrative horror and historical pain.

• Environmental & Historical Resonance (16:40–17:57)

  • The novel's horror is also ecological—vividly depicting the slaughter of buffalo alongside the genocide of Indigenous people.
  • Joumana notes how the landscape knowledge and spiritual connection of Good Stab complicate his monstrousness—"what really makes somebody monstrous" becomes an unsettled question.

Notable Quotes

• On Vampire as Metaphor:

  “Stephen Graham Jones makes the vampire a metaphor for the avenging Angel—the way that he wishes native people in the history of America could have fought back.”
  —Gilbert Cruz (07:20)

• On Alienation:

  “He doesn't know how to relate to his land anymore. He’s losing his sense of identity. And that I found excruciating.”
  —Joumana Khatib (08:34)

• On Sensory Impact:

  “This book was a feast for the senses, and I mean that in the creepiest way possible.”
  —Gillian from Colorado (reader comment, read aloud by MJ Franklin) (18:21)

---

Community Feedback

(18:21–20:35)

• Positive: Readers praise the originality, violence, setting, and the way vampire lore is adapted.
• Critical: Some complain the violence is too graphic. Gilbert pushes back: “If you’re going to read a horror novel, you should expect that there will be some level of violence... That was absolutely a plus for me.” (19:53–20:26)

---

[Spoilers Begin | 22:57]

Spoiler-Filled Discussion: Endings, Twists, and Controversies

The Wild Climax

• Return of Catman & Animal Transformations:

  • Catman, presumed dead, returns for revenge, manipulating Good Stab’s tribe against him.
  • Good Stab ultimately turns Catman into a fish (feeding him only fish, which vampires find repulsive), then banishes him in a frozen lake.
  • Arthur Bokarn is discovered to not only be alive but has—through vampire magic—been transformed into a seven-foot-long, chain-smoking prairie dog.
  • Etsy, armed with ancestral knowledge, dispatches “Prairie Dog Granddaddy” by force-feeding him cigarettes in the backseat of her car.

• Panelist Reactions (27:01–28:40)

  • Joumana: Enthusiastic about absurdity:

    “I think this is the best way to take the wind out of somebody's sails—make them the most pitiful, comedic, absurd... Like a plot point from [David Lynch’s] Twin Peaks.”

  • Gilbert: Ambivalent but ultimately satisfied:

    “I was a bit thrown when Prairie Dog Granddaddy came into the picture... but it felt of a piece with the rest of the book in some way.”

  • MJ:
    • Found the animal transformations clever but anticlimactic:

    “Scene after scene of justice and retribution...and then there’s something that felt so deflated...they live out the rest of their days as an animal.”

The Nested Narrative Structure

(32:01–34:10)

• Framing Device and Confessional Layers:
  • Discussion about the necessity and effectiveness of the journal-within-a-journal structure.
  • Joumana: Sees the oral tradition and epistolary lineage (a la Dracula) as fitting:

    “It also lets Good Stab tell a story in a real oral tradition...the nesting didn’t bother me at all.”

  • MJ: Appreciates the theme of “remembering” and the unreliable narrator:

    “It felt connected to the plea of the book...which is Remember.”

Other Critical Insights

• Arthur’s Guilt and Gluttony:
  • The character’s overconsumption parallels his complicity in colonial violence—a metaphor for “consumption without consequence.” (37:18)
• Complexity and Convolution:
  • All agree that the book’s plot is at times difficult to follow, but agree the effort is worthwhile.

More Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On Violence as Literary Tool:

  “There’s a moment late in the book when Good Stab essentially traps Bokarn in the church. And Bokarn finds he is surrounded by dead people from the town, as well as a bunch of dead dogs in the pews. That was just sick and very memorable.”
  —Gilbert Cruz (40:05)

• On Legacy and Remembrance:

  “What use, me preserving them in the privacy of this log? I know, but neither can I just let them drift past, not without attempting to stab the nib of a pen down through them... Had no one written the Gospels down, what would the world have lost then? So I dutifully record this, the Gospel of Good Stab, in his own words.”
  —Arthur Bokarn (quoted by MJ) (34:10)

---

Book Recommendations

(41:26–45:44)

If you liked The Buffalo Hunter Hunter...

• Joumana:

  • Pushing the Bear by Diane Glancy – Historical novel about the Cherokee during the Trail of Tears.
  • Beloved by Toni Morrison – A literary ghost story confronting American history.

• Gilbert:

  • Lone Women by Victor LaValle – Montana horror novel with a female protagonist; similar mix of supernatural and history.

• MJ:

  • The Reformatory by Tananarive Due – Horror meets Black American historical trauma.
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker – The foundational vampire novel; inspiration for Jones.

---

Closing Reflections

• The panel agrees that Jones’s novel is ambitious, traumatic, inventive, and memorable—a horror novel that is as much about America’s past as its monsters.
• The theme of “you are what you eat” resonates across plot, metaphor, and moral dilemma.
• The animal transformations spark debate—are they clever commentary or a letdown?
• The nested narrative structure, metaphorical violence, and burden of memory are central to the novel’s ambition.

---

Next Month’s Book Club

November Book Club Pick: "Hamnet" by Maggie O’Farrell
(Dovetails with new movie adaptation and NYT Best Book status)

---

For rich discussion and diverse views on horror, historical memory, and Narrative innovation, this book club episode is a must-listen for readers and fans of literary horror alike.

---

Quick Reference: Major Timestamps

• Book Setup & Non-Spoilers: 03:08–21:13
• Reader Comments/Community Feedback: 18:21–20:35
• Spoiler Discussion Starts: 22:57
• Climax & Final Twist Discussion: 25:18–32:01
• Framing Device & Narrative Structure: 32:01–34:10
• Book Recommendations: 41:26–45:44
• Announcement of Next Book: 46:31

---

Notable Quote:

“History is the true horror show.”
—Gilbert Cruz (43:07)

---

End of comprehensive episode summary.

Transcript

[Joumana Khatib]

What makes an island vacation magical? The culture of music and dance, the art and architecture, the great outdoors. For Puerto Rico, it's all three. Visit San Juan and see the city's museums, music and dance schools as you pass traditional colonial architecture, or hear the island come alive at night. Whether it's Puerto Rico's iconic coqui, frogs singing from the trees or enjoying salsa and reggaeton at local bars and restaurants, learn all the ways you can discover Puerto Rico. Learn more at Discover Puerto Rico.com.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review, and this is the Book Review Podcast. It is time for our monthly book club episode hosted by MJ Franklin, and this time, delightfully, I get to introduce him. Introducing me because because I am one of the panelists this week, I'm going to toss it over to mj.

[MJ Franklin]

Hello and welcome to another book club episode of the Book Review Podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm an editor here at the New York Times Book Review. And for this month's Book Review Book Club, we're reading and talking about the Buffalo Hunter X Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. Our thinking for this book was it's October, Halloween is here. Let's read a horror novel and get spooky. And then we thought, what's a buzzy horror novel that published this year? The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. What's a horror novel that gives you a lot to chew on for a book club? The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. What's a book that builds upon horror tropes for longtime horror readers, but it's also accessible to anyone new to the genre? The Buffalo Hunter X Hunter. So it was an easy pick. The Buffalo Hunter X Hunter is our book club book. Joining me to discuss this novel are two voices you already hear laughing. Gilbert Cruz and Joumana Khatib. Gilbert Joumana, welcome.

[Joumana Khatib]

Thank you, mj.

[MJ Franklin]

It's good to be here.

[Gilbert Cruz]

What book are we talking about?

[MJ Franklin]

We're talking about. I can't remember. I can't remember.

[Joumana Khatib]

Middlemarch.

[MJ Franklin]

Buffalo Buffalo.

[Gilbert Cruz]

The Murmur Murmur. Mj, thank you for having me on. It's so delightful to be on the other side of the mic here.

[MJ Franklin]

All the tables have turned. I am excited and intimidated.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Don't be fitting for this book. You are in charge.

[MJ Franklin]

And Jomana, welcome back.

[Joumana Khatib]

I am so delighted to be here. I this book has tapped into a part of me I don't get to use very often.

[MJ Franklin]

Before we begin, I have my usual admin notes first. There will be spoilers in this episode. However, I know this is a book Animated by suspense and mystery. And puzzling out what's going on is part of the fun. So to keep this conversation accessible, the first half of the episode will be spoiler free. We're gonna set the book up, but we're gonna avoid the big plot points and twists and. And then the second half will be spoiler filled. That's our first note. The second note, at the end of the conversation, we will reveal our November book club book. So stay with us to figure out what we're reading next. And with that, let's dive in to get started. Can someone set up the book for us? What is the Buffalo Hunter Hunter about?

[Joumana Khatib]

I'm happy to take this one on. Okay, so this is a story within a story within a story.

[MJ Franklin]

So.

[Joumana Khatib]

So our first character that we meet, her name is Etsy Bokarn. She is an academic. She's trying to get tenure. She's finding the whole process a bit labyrinthine. And all of a sudden, she comes into the possession of a journal that belonged to her great, great, great grandfather. And the owner of the journal's name is Arthur Bokarn. It's 1912. He is a Lutheran pastor in what is present day Montana. He is tending a flock that is pretty unsettled by some rather gruesome murders that are happening in town. People are being skinned, their faces are painted, and everybody's just very much on edge. And within time, Father Bokarn starts receiving a new member of his parish who is a vampire. He's an indigenous man. He's a member of the Blackfeet tribe, which is based in the area. And he cuts a very mysterious figure. He's got these dark glasses. You can tell there's something otherworldly about him. And he decides, for reasons that will become clear as you carry on reading the book, that he wants Arthur Beaukarn specifically to hear his confession. And one of the things that Good Stab, of course, tells Bokarn and us by extension, is his origin story, how he turned. And that happened during this ferocious battle between a creature, individual vampire named King Catman. And he's an important figure because he really is like good Stabs op. Pay attention to Catman.

[MJ Franklin]

That is a beautiful setup, especially given how tricky this book is. There are layers upon layers upon layers. With that out of the way, I want to hear your opinions and thoughts about the book. I'm especially curious because I feel like in this room, we have a range. I feel like I'm in the middle. I read more horror than some, but perhaps not as much as the enthusiasts. I'm putting you in the seat as the enthusiast, Gilbert. I'm putting you as a educated, informed, roving, lay reader. Joumana, is that accurate?

[Joumana Khatib]

You could also just say scaredy cat.

[MJ Franklin]

You could also say wimp.

[Joumana Khatib]

I respond to all names.

[MJ Franklin]

So I'm so curious to know the consensus about this book. I'm gonna start with you, Gilbert. Tell me your thoughts. Did you like the Buffalo Hunter? X Hunter? Hate it. Feel mixed.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I was mostly positive. There are some things, I think, as is the case with most books, most pieces of art that I could quibble with. But all in all, I found it to be extremely satisfying. I am someone who has read a lot of vampire stories, books. I've watched a lot of vampire movies, and this still felt new to me in a way. Obviously, there's a basic nugget of what a vampire is, but Stephen Graham Jones, the author here, who's written many, many a horror book, found a way to enliven it by making it this piece of historical fiction that also crosses over with horror fiction, which he does so well. There's some stuff at the end that we'll talk about in the second half in the spoiler section that's a little wacky, but I thought it was great. I really loved it.

[MJ Franklin]

Was there an element that really spoke to you? The horror part, the historical part? When you think about this book, what stands out to you? Big picture.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Yeah. I think one of the things that stood out to me is the metaphor that. That the vampire is in this book. Vampires. Throughout the history of vampire fiction and depictions of vampires have often been a metaphor for something. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, there is a way in which Dracula in that book is a metaphor for the encroachment of the immigrant, the outsider, on Western Europe. There was a period in vampire fiction or vampire movies in the 80s in which the vampire was a metaphor for the AIDS crisis or something like that. And in here, Stephen Graham Jones makes the vampire a metaphor for the avenging Angel. The way that he wishes native people in the history of America could have fought back. He makes it into both metaphor and fantasy at the same time for how it would have been great as white people were taking over this land bit by bit, if there was something that indigenous people could have done to fight back against them.

[MJ Franklin]

What about you, Jomana? You just said that you are scaredy cat, a wimp. So I assume that you don't read many horror novels.

[Joumana Khatib]

No, I don't. I don't. I have a very fixed worldview about Scary books, which is that life is scary enough.

[MJ Franklin]

Very fair.

[Joumana Khatib]

So one of the things that surprised me, because, mj, I remember you were saying to me, oh, Jomana, I can't wait to hear what you have to say about the gore. Because the gore is very, very present and it does feel almost Tarantino esque. I actually was fine with the gore. Like, I could have seen 12 more people skinned, but I was like, fine with that for whatever reason. That was totally cool. What I found unbearable, really unbearable, were the moments after Good Stab or Takes no Scalps. He's got a couple different names in the book after he was turned. And he talks about the profound alienation from his tribe, from his family, and. And I was like, oh, my God, I don't know if I can keep reading this. This is so heartbreaking. He doesn't know how to relate to his land anymore. He's losing his sense of identity. And that I found excruciating.

[MJ Franklin]

Well, it's as we see in the book, it's a unique type of horror. He has become this monster, this vampire, and so now he has the power to defend his people, and yet he's alienated from it. And that's such a. Interesting tension.

[Joumana Khatib]

Yeah. This is like a refrain for Good Stab. He doesn't know who he like first. It was, what is a. What is a Bhikkhuni? That's the. That's the term for like a native person in the book without a horse or somebody who can't even smoke a pipe with his father. Or there are moments where he's cradling a child later on in the book and he's like, this reminded me, I actually am still a father. And it's just like, oh, God, kill me.

[MJ Franklin]

This is the rich stuff that I love in fiction. Something that's gonna tear my heart apart.

[Joumana Khatib]

And go for the neck. The other thing that I loved. And again, I am a total vampire neophyte. Well, not total, but mostly vampire neophyte. But I really liked the spin that you are what you eat in this book. Because hunger and greed and being sated and appetite, that's a huge thing. Not just with Good Stab, but throughout the book.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Yeah. If we want to talk about the sort of rules of what makes a vampire a vampire, there are some very different ones set up here by Jones in this book. You don't have the. You cannot enter a home until you've been invited in. You are allergic to garlic, you are allergic to crucifixes, any of that stuff. Right There are These ways in which Jones sort of messes around with those rules on the edges. When they cry, they cry blood. They are allergic to tobacco smoke for good Stab. There's a place on his side that if he drinks too much blood, it splits open and blood starts to pour out. He cannot stop feeding on someone until that person is completely drained of blood, which is very unlike other vampire stories. And as Jomana says, most importantly, and again, just to the metaphorical undertone of this story, you are what you eat. If you feed on deer, you start to get little white tailed deer spots on your arm and your legs and little nubs start coming out of your head. And if you feed on white people, as he does for a while, then good Stab starts to become a white person, essentially, and this really messes him up. So in order to become or to reconnect with his Blackfeet roots, he has to start killing his own people.

[MJ Franklin]

What an incredible moral dilemma. Xumana, what did you make of this vampire twist?

[Joumana Khatib]

It gives it such an existential bent, of course. Also, it makes me realize how apt the vampire metaphor is when we're talking about this forgotten history. Because the other thing to know about this book is that it's. It's fixed to a real life historical event, which was a massacre in 1870 of 173, although some accounts say more than 200 Blackfeet. And Stephen Graham Jones has been so alive to the various tropes of genre. And there's a lot of precedent for writers using like science fiction or fantasy tropes to help explain a reality. Like Juno Diaz, for example, is like the classic example of that. And I think that he. That Stephen Graham Jones had such a canny eye about the hunger for claiming land, claiming native lives, claiming more territory, asserting a white stronghold in these territories that is really complimented by a vampire myth.

[MJ Franklin]

Gilbert, you are a vampire expert. How did you feel you set up the differences in the vampire lore in this novel? How did you feel about it, though?

[Gilbert Cruz]

I thought it was great. I have seen, as I said, just a ton of vampire movies, vampire TV shows and like, and you know, you have to do some work to really give it an interesting twist that still feels like it has its own internal logic. And some of the things that we just talked about. Now, those ways that the vampires in this book are different have a great bearing on the stuff that happens in the back half of this book. The rules to being a vampire, which we can discuss later, it's just incredibly thought out. I mean, you don't necessarily need to have a tightly constructed plot in order to make a horror novel work. Unless maybe it's a slasher novel, which Graham Jones has also done. But it just felt like he did the work and it surprised me. And it surprised me in a way that was delightful. As opposed to, whoa, these are not the vampires I know.

[MJ Franklin]

I realized while reading this, I was talking to someone about I'm reading a vampire novel and they were like, do you typically like those? And I realized I have read a good number of vampire novels more than I realized. In addition to things like Dracula, which I just read for the first time for this book club earlier this year, we had Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. That was a vampire novel. This isn't a novel, but Sinners this year, also vampires. I have read all of Twilight. I'm going to put that up there. What that does to vampires also will say something new and original as well.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I love a glittery vampire and I.

[MJ Franklin]

Feel like, yeah, the twists here are. I'm just listening to our conversation where you've mentioned hunger and control and gluttony and these things are so literary too. What I will say now then, is that I found the scene work and the images he gives us throughout this book to be some of the most unforgettable in anything I've read this year or a long time. I have one image that happens later on in the book that I will talk about in the second half, but one from early on is one of the first times we see Good Stab as a vampire exacting revenge against some white settlers and pulling up a quote. I love a quote. They're all sitting around a campfire and good SAP is lurking in the dark. And then all of a sudden, when they came back into the light of the fire from killing all the calves that would come to their water skins, I was standing there in front of the flames and they stepped back and one of them shouted, probably because I was still wearing the insides of that blackhorn bull everywhere except my eyes, which were open and staring hard. And I could feel that my teeth were sharp when I hissed at them. And all their guns were leaned against wagons from when they'd got their water skins that had been hanging there. So just goes on. But this scene of all of a sudden, you pan over, there is this bullhead figure, bloody, standing in front of a fire. And it's Tarantino esque. It's chilling to me. And that's one of the triumphs, I think, of this book. We just get these really evocative Incredible horror scenes that are also freighted with so much literary meaning as well.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Part of the challenge of writing horror can often be there's one strain of horror where you're writing about something that doesn't have a bodily form. You're writing about a demon. You're writing about a ghost. You have to write about the feelings that an unseen presence can evoke in your main characters. And here you have something that is extremely cinematic, right? You have a native vampire who has covered it. Because this is a Western in its own way. And so you're using this Western iconography to paint these very memorable images. I mean, I have so many examples here in my notes. Just a side note, I felt so bad for the buffalo. I felt so bad for the buffalo. The calves, their mothers are not around anymore.

[MJ Franklin]

What's the buffalo that he adopts? Weasel. Plume. I know.

[Joumana Khatib]

Brutal.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Okay. Given that the name of the book is the Buffalo Hunter. Hunter, Hunter, Hunter. This makes sense. But I've never thought about buffalo this much, and it made me very angry at what was done.

[MJ Franklin]

Well, I think that's another strength of this book. We have heard conceptually about the decimation of the buffalo. We have spoken not as much as we should have, but about what's happened to Native Americans and indigenous people of this country. And this book makes you feel that more. You feel good stabs pain at the massacre of his people. You feel the pain of what we're doing to the buffalo. That is another triumph, I think, of this book.

[Joumana Khatib]

The xenophobia of Dracula is baked in from the very beginning, right? Because you have this sort of Transylvanian guy with three undead wives who goes to wherever, Marylebone and London, and. And it's like a klaxon. There is still some defense of the homeland going on, but the power is completely different. Or it's just riffing on who's intruding on our land and who's intruding where, who doesn't belong where. And part of what makes good Stabs able to survive is his knowledge of the landscape and knowledge of the flora and the fauna. And there's a really strong argument for having that kind of innate native intelligence.

[MJ Franklin]

Talk about resonances. He's a monster, but he's also probably the most connected to the Earth and as a character that we have in this book.

[Joumana Khatib]

Yeah, exactly. And so it's a good question about what really makes somebody monstrous. And it's oftentimes not having that connection to nature or the broader world. So, mj, I'm curious. I did see some really good reader comments about this. Were there any that hit you in particular?

[MJ Franklin]

Yes, there's an article up on the New York Times Headline Book Club Read the Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones with the Book Review. You can join the conversation there, but I wanted to read out a few that stood out. Gillian from Colorado writes, simply, this book was a feast for the senses, and I mean that in the creepiest way possible. Jack from Delaware writes, jones does a great job of taking vampire lore and running with it in totally different directions. The Montana setting, the use of Blackfoot tribes, society and life, and the truly creative reasons why vampires feed the way they do all combine to make this horror novel truly memorable. Jake from Pennsylvania writes, probably Stephen Graham Jones masterpiece. So capacious, so entertaining, so violent and funny and tragic. Touches on a lot of the same themes he's been riffing on for years, but takes these ideas about American life, about American genocide and the cruelties of the early American capitalism coming home to roost in the 21st century. He takes them into new and surprising territory. So those are a lot of positives. There were some gripes though. Jan from Wisconsin writes, the violence is too much for me. I fear it's so violent in a particular way that I can't quite find entertainment in it. Even the vampire parts. I actually find it baffling. So many people find this book enjoyable, interesting, compelling, moving, important, etc. Yes, but enjoyable. Any recommendation should come with a huge asterisk. So this is all to say there is a huge, robust conversation happening in our comment section.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I just want to butt in very quickly and take slight issue with the comment that you just read. I. I know there are lots of different types of horror novels, but I feel if you're going to read a horror novel you should expect that there will be some level of violence.

[MJ Franklin]

But this. I kind of get it. I was fine with the violence, but it is so graphic.

[Gilbert Cruz]

I know everyone's different. That was absolutely a plus for me. I read a bunch of scenes, I was like, wow, I've never seen a human body taken apart that way before. That is quite memorable.

[MJ Franklin]

I mean that is. You're right, that is part of the fun of reading a horror novel and.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Being like, so maybe I won't take issue. I will just disagree with that. Commenter Agree to disagree.

[Joumana Khatib]

I don't.

[MJ Franklin]

From best selling author Wendy Walker comes a gripping new psychological thriller with a spectacular twist. Don't miss the new Audible original the Room Next Door, a tightly crafted mystery told from three points of view. It's a nail biting thriller about three friends who are inseparable until one of them disappeared. Fifteen years later, an anonymous call provides a chilling new lead and their stories begin to unravel a web of lies, betrayals and long buried secrets. You can follow every step and misstep of the characters in this deeply immersive mystery. Don't miss Wendy Walker's new Audible original, the Room Next Door. Go to audible.com theroomnextdoor and start listening. Today, Mont Blanc invites you to use.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Life'S quiet moments to pause, reflect and.

[MJ Franklin]

Put pen to paper. Chapter one oh no, no no no no.

[Joumana Khatib]

Part one Mm, perfect.

[MJ Franklin]

The mountains are impressive. Oh, I wish you were here to see them. Dear Diary, meet my new writing companion, the Meisterstuck. For every journey, the perfect companion awaits. Montblanc. Let's write. Visit montblanc.com for exquisitely crafted writing instruments, leather goods and more.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Discover a Better paradise, the debut novel from legendary video game creator Dan Hauser, writer of the Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto series. Set in the near future, A Better paradise tells the story of the ill fated development of an ambulance ambitious but addictive video game project that goes very wrong. Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One, calls it a harrowing techno futurist fever dream of paranoid creators being hunted down by their creation. A Better Paradise Available now from all good booksellers.

[Joumana Khatib]

I don't want to be the person banging the historical drum, but I do think that a big theme of this book is obviously good stabs villain origin story is watching what was being done to his people. And there's nothing enjoyable about mass extermination. There's nothing about it. As skilled as the author is, I think that there probably was some element of forcing you to look at what's really hard and uncomfortable. There's so much violence that happened off the page that we don't even see. This is like a small fraction of it.

[MJ Franklin]

This is why I love a book club rich conversation. This is great. Again, you can find that comment and more on line. We're going to dive back into our conversation here in the studio, but first I think we should take a quick break. And we're back. This is the book review podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm with Gilbert Cruz and Zumani Khatib and we're talking about the Buffalo Hunter X Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. Before the break we were keeping things spoiler light and now that we're back we're just going to dive fully in. This is your spoiler Alert. We're talking about later sections of the book, plot points, and where it all takes us. I am going to reset the table. So in the second half of the book, the Cat man comes back. He was the figure that transformed Good Stab into a vampire in the first place. In this battle, we thought that he was dead, ripped in half, but then somehow he is back and he is out for vengeance against Goodstab, which he enacts in a variety of ways, including posing as a Blackfeet leader and turning Goodstab's own people against him. He traps Good Stab in a cage in the ice and then turns him into a white man by only feeding him White Settlers. Again, this is that you are what you eat vampire setup and a lot more. He is this terrible big back villain who is back. Meanwhile, in the 1912 storyline, we find out a terrible secret that Arthur has been keeping. He was there on that initial day when White Settlers massacred Goodstaff's friends and family and tribe. And in fact, Arthur was the one who encouraged it. He has a lot to atone for, and he realizes that Good Stab knows what's going on, and so we're watching what is going to play out there. This all culminates in a showdown between Goodstab and the Catman in the past, a showdown between Goodstaff and Arthur in 1912, and then again, a complicated book. On top of all of this, Etsy in 2012 is reading all about this in the journal. She realizes her connection to this scene, this story. She is a descendant of Arthur's. Then she realizes that Arthur is still around and Good Stab is still around, and she has to atone for it all and resolve it all. A lot is happening. I want to ask, now that we got that out of the way, what did you think of it all?

[Joumana Khatib]

I understand there are some quibbles about how the foes of this book meet their end. So again, spoiler klaxon. So Good Stab he is. Again, he really marshals his knowledge of the natural world and he really summons all this rage that he's built up over over time. So once he has the Cat man where he wants him, he basically turns the Catman into a fish, like a very big fish, by only feeding the Catman fish. Also, we know that for vampires, eating fish is disgusting.

[Gilbert Cruz]

It's same wor.

[Joumana Khatib]

Okay, worse. Would you rather eat a mouse?

[MJ Franklin]

No.

[Joumana Khatib]

That's what I thought. And then he dispatches the Cat Man, I guess. Now Fish man into a frozen lake. Then fast forward, Etsy realizes that Arthur is On the premise, her great great great grandfather is not only still around, but he's in her house and he is at this point, a seven foot long prairie dog. That Good Stab has turned it. I just want to make sure people know that, yes, he is a seven foot long prairie dog. And Etsy, having absorbed all the knowledge of the journal and therefore Good Stabs confessions, she knows that tobacco was like a very hostile thing for Good Stab to. To take in after he'd been changed. So basically, when she realizes she needs to dispense with her great great great grandfather Prairie Dog, she throws him in the backseat of her car and is basically like feeding him cigarettes on loop.

[MJ Franklin]

It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

[Joumana Khatib]

It's so good. Now, I understand that this is contested. I think this is the best way to take the wind out of somebody's sails is to make them just like the most pitiful comedic, absurd. Like, this is actually like a plot point, I'm sure from the Return, the David lynch series. My favorite movie, true cinema. Can't you see? Can't you see that happening in a prairie dog man? Yeah, like a very long, slinky great, great, great grandfather. Yeah.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Yes. Yes, I can. Yes, I can. I was a bit thrown when Prairie Dog Granddaddy came into the picture. This part basically happened to you in the last 30 or so pages. And I'm not sure that I rode with it, but when I came to the end, I still found it satisfying.

[MJ Franklin]

This is.

[Gilbert Cruz]

This is not a short book, and most of it was wonderfully constructed. I do think the way that Good Stab uses turning his foes into animals in order to get them out of the picture, even if the prairie dog was a little too much, he could have picked a different animal. I thought it was ingenious. Right. You have this indigenous man who is someone who understands the land, understands the animals, like animals play such a big role in this book to begin with, the title aside, he's always talking about the animals that he is feeding on, the animals that are around when terrible things are being done to humans. It really felt, even though it's slightly ridiculous, it felt of a piece with the rest of the book in some way. I contend there might have been a different animal, but he chose a prairie dog.

[Joumana Khatib]

Okay, okay. All right. So also, what other animal would look cool chain smoking in the back of a car? I'll let you think about that.

[Gilbert Cruz]

A beaver?

[Joumana Khatib]

No, no, the beavers are too important. Okay, I'm gonna move on. So the other thing about this is that first of All. I'm impressed with the people on Reddit who have opinions about this book.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Let me tell you, people on Reddit have opinions.

[Joumana Khatib]

Yeah, stop the presses. A lot of them had chickens to pluck with the last section, period. They think the book could and perhaps should have ended with Arthur Bokarn not gone back to Etsy. They found Etsy almost like an extraneous character. Now, I disagree with that because I think that in order for Stephen Grand Jones, apparently I have to say all three of his names every single time. It is a great name to, like, really land a last argument. It has to come back to the present because good Stab has this great. You can imagine James Earl Jones saying this in the movie trailer where it's, I'm the Indian who won't die. I'm the worst nightmare that America's ever had. It has to come back into the present because this is still an issue. This is still a legacy, a haunting that's never gone away.

[MJ Franklin]

I didn't mind that we came back to Etsy. I think the thing that I really disliked is that he defeats them by turning the Catman and Arthur into animals in the first place. And I think I dislike that because throughout the book, we have scene after scene after scene of justice and retribution against humans. And again, I read that scene out earlier when good stap appears in front of the fire. And there are these great, incredible, moving. Just you feel the righteous fury of justice.

[Gilbert Cruz]

And.

[MJ Franklin]

And then there's something just that felt so deflated of they live out the rest of their days as an animal. And that is a particular type of horror. But it didn't match the fury that I felt animated the rest of the book. I found it to be clever. And I liked the riff on what we're doing to the land, and now you're stuck as that. I like the riff on you are what you eat and the vampires. It just didn't feel as satisfying as some of the justice scenes that we see throughout the rest of the book. And so that's my gripe. And then on top of that, it just. The animals they chose just felt silly. The other thing I will say, and this is just a paranoid horror person, maybe I've seen too many books, movies that become franchises. They get to live out their days as these animals, but what's to stop them from coming back? It felt like it was not a final. It was not a final button.

[Joumana Khatib]

Oh, I totally got the sense that, like, he was setting himself up to return to this universe if he wanted to.

[MJ Franklin]

And I don't want that. Not because I don't love the story, but there's something I love. Just like a one and done one and done. An incredible one shot. I feel like this is a. I don't want to say perfect book because I've just mentioned some gripes, but this is such a remarkable contained unit. I want this story to be this story.

[Gilbert Cruz]

What about a bobcat? They are native to Montana and they don't have tails.

[Joumana Khatib]

Bob kitten.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Yeah. What do you think?

[Joumana Khatib]

I don't think a bobcat is less ridiculous than a prairie dog.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Okay, you make a good point. Maybe you're right.

[Joumana Khatib]

I mean, a bobcat might look more like Arthur Bokarn.

[MJ Franklin]

Like, I'm turning this car around.

[Joumana Khatib]

Yes.

[MJ Franklin]

Get us back on track. I have a question. What do we think of the frame narrative overall? So the commenters on Reddit talked about not liking Etsy and coming back to 2012 where her storyline is, but what do we think of the idea that a journal being read by someone in that journal is a confession being read by someone else? What do we think of the frame narrative overall?

[Joumana Khatib]

I got thoughts. I've got thoughts. So first of all, let's not forget that Dracula is like an epistolary book. There's made up newspaper clippings and like, part of that works to sort of assert like that it's not just happening to one person. There are a lot of people that are watching this happen. I also think that this frame within a frame. I'm very interested in confessionals right now or confessional narratives or confessional books. I've never been to church, so that's probably why. But it also lets good stab tell a story in like a real oral tradition. Right? And that was something that people I know had issues with where they were. Like, why am I not there in real time? Why is this being recounted? And actually, I think oral storytelling is a huge part of this history. It allows the author to tell the story in a way that might feel more authentic or more genuine or something. So I liked it. I did not mind the nesting whatsoever.

[MJ Franklin]

What about you, Gilbert? What did you think?

[Gilbert Cruz]

I did not mind it. I slightly minded the sort of sad academic voice that Etsy had to inhabit, but she is like an academic trying to get tenure in Colorado. I believe Graham Jones is an academic who has tenure maybe in Colorado. Like you write what you know. But yeah, she was a bit annoying to me.

[MJ Franklin]

I found her inconsistent. In the start of the book, she talks about how she can't even remember certain speeches or Quotes. But she's an academic up for tenure.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Seems like she's not a very good one. Maybe that's the problem.

[MJ Franklin]

Drag her. Drag her. No. I felt like, for whatever reason, we needed her to be fumbling and on wit's end and to get her there. The framework just didn't land for me, and I didn't love her voice, but I did love the idea that we come to a descendant, we come back to the present. I love that frame narrative. The other thing that I loved about the frame narrative is it felt connected to the plea of the book and the project of the book, which is remember. So there's a quote that I really love that I think gets at the heart of the project, and that is Arthur talking about why he is taking this confession and writing it down. And 10 years, maybe even, but five, details and peculiarities such as this will have evaporated into the mists of history and become irretrievable in this forward march of progress. What? Use me preserving them in the privacy of this log. I know, but neither can I just let them drift past, not without attempting to stab the nib of a pen down through them. Had no one written the Gospels down, what would the world have lost then? So I dutifully record this, the Gospel of Good Stab, in his own words. And I feel like, given Good Stab's fury about this massacre and how that's been forgotten, this frame narrative gets at this idea of we have to remember our history. We can't let it slip past our fingers. And I think that's just a rich, interesting theme. But then we talked about duality earlier, about vampires being both monsters and the defenders in this book. There's a duality in that storyline, which is that Arthur, as this great scribe, is not reliable. He has his own secret. He has done his own damage. And so that frame narrative, I think, really holds quite a lot.

[Gilbert Cruz]

We learn later on in the book, of course, that Arthur is a bad man who's tried to atone for his sins by becoming a pastor. But even in that passage you read early on, you can tell, like I mentioned, most settlers at the time he's in on the project. This land is not. These people and their land are not going to exist in the same way ten years from now. And there is a little bit of an undertone, particularly as the story progresses, that he thinks that's a good thing.

[MJ Franklin]

Can I ask one question about Arthur? This is another gripe I had, which is we talked about the rules. So how old is Arthur when he Meets Good Stab. That massacre seemed to have occurred a long time ago. I don't think Arthur, throughout the church scenes, is a vampire at this point, partially because he's eating a lot of food, but he seems to have lived a supernaturally long life.

[Gilbert Cruz]

The massacre takes place in 1870. This story is happening in 1912, so that is 42 years. Imagine that he was in his early 20s, maybe, when the massacre happened. And so he's a pastor in his early 60s.

[Joumana Khatib]

And good stab says that he's 80, but looks much younger than Beaukarn. But he's older than Beaukarn, So I've pictured 60s as well.

[MJ Franklin]

Oh, got it. For whatever reason, I pictured him as younger, and there seemed to be deflated symbolism of Arthur's gluttony. We see him consuming just a tremendous amount, and that seemed to be so symbolic, but different from the overall idea of destruction. And then he becomes a vampire.

[Joumana Khatib]

But, I mean, you could argue that his role in the massacre is actually an expression of kind of consumption without consequence.

[MJ Franklin]

And his.

[Joumana Khatib]

His gluttony, he talks about trying to justify it to himself. He's, oh, well, like, if I just finish this sausage today, it'll be better.

[Gilbert Cruz]

And, like, he eats a lot of sausage.

[MJ Franklin]

A lot.

[Joumana Khatib]

And cakes, Ash cakes. That sounds like a choking hazard. But to me, it feels parallel to how he's trying to reconcile his own guilt about things and fool himself, almost.

[MJ Franklin]

Yeah, I stand corrected. My overall thought was that at a certain point, the story did feel very convoluted, with characters coming in and out, and it's hard to track who is this person who's being murdered here, what's going on in the past, especially as you go back and forth. And so a part of me found parts of this book hard to follow.

[Joumana Khatib]

I could be totally wrong about that. I'm coming into this with a willful desire to understand this. I will say about this book that I was very. I was a very participatory reader, and I wanted to engage with it in a way that, like, I wasn't taking a backseat as a reader, which I do sometimes.

[Gilbert Cruz]

In this case, I feel like I fall in between the two of you. There definitely were points, like MJ said, where I was like, wait, who is this? And what does this word for this animal mean again? I almost wanted to write a little glossary for myself of what it's on Reddit, what. What the dirty face was, and all this stuff. But you just knew that Arthur had a terrible secret, right? There's multiple mysteries happening at the same time. What is good Stab? You find out very early. But you want to know more about his story. What happened to Arthur Bokarn, which is what his descendant is trying to find out. At the same time, what is the secret in Arthur's past? There are all these mysteries that are knotted together that I thought give the book sort of an engine that led me through to the end. Even if at points like you, I found myself drifting a little bit.

[MJ Franklin]

This is a plea for close reading. I will do closer reading. Everyone should do close reading.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Oh, no. Yes. We work at the Book Review, but like the average reader reads like we do, which is sometimes you get lost and you have to go back. And that's absolutely normal.

[Joumana Khatib]

I had to reread the first scene when they encountered. The first time they encountered Catman because I'd listened to it with the audiobook's good. But I did have to go back and read it and be like, okay, do I understand what the hell is going on here? The other thing that I just want to say, I do love Beaukarn as a surname. Beautiful. Meet. Hello. Hello.

[Gilbert Cruz]

It took me way too long to figure that out.

[MJ Franklin]

I think I'm realizing that in the studio right now. I just got it partially because I was pronouncing in my mind as Bukharni or whatever. I don't know.

[Joumana Khatib]

It's funny. I bet that I could be right.

[MJ Franklin]

But anyway, we're running long here and we have a fun last question segment to get to. Before I go, are there any last things? Any things you just want to mention, notes you want to read out about this book?

[Gilbert Cruz]

Yeah. I mentioned how I. Because there's something wrong with me. Really appreciated the violence in this book. I thought it was memorable. I thought it fit what you should be reading in a certain type of horror book. I also thought there were a couple of absolutely memorable scenes. There's a moment late in the book when Good Stab essentially traps Bokarn in the church. And Bokarn finds that he is surrounded by dead people from the town, as well as a bunch of dead dogs in the pews. That was just sick and very memorable.

[MJ Franklin]

And then Bokharn's tied up to the crucifix. What a scene.

[Gilbert Cruz]

There's an earlier image. I actually wrote it down here where Bokarn. This is how he finds out that tobacco is harmful to this type of vampire. He's smoking in the church. And as Graham Jones writes, this is Arthur sort of writing in his diary. I speak, of course, of Jesus on his cross looking down on us all, his pain and suffering graven in wood. His skin not pale and sunless like mine, but leathery and brown from his long walks across the deserts of his world. As I watched, he spasmed forward and coughed from my exhaled smoke. And that's actually. I don't get scared, really, by reading books. I creeped out. I was like, oh, that is a moment.

[MJ Franklin]

Chills.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Yeah, chills.

[MJ Franklin]

On that note, we have a fun last question, which is recommendations. I want to know what books would you recommend readers pick up after reading the Buffalo Hunter X Hunter. That could be. For whatever reason. Maybe it's another vampire story. Maybe it's another novel that surfaces and excavates indigenous culture and history. Maybe it's another frame narrative. I defer to you, but I'm just curious. What would you recommend readers pick up next?

[Joumana Khatib]

Okay. I hate being like a literal Linda, but the first thing I thought of was Pushing the Bear by Diane Glancy, which is another historical novel. It follows members of the Cherokee Nation during the time of the Trail of Tears. And I remember reading this as one of the first books by an indigenous author about a very important indigenous moment in history. And I read it at the right time, which is when I was old enough to really think critically about how important it is to get other perspective on things. It's not like anybody was teaching me that the Trail of Tears was a good thing, but it was. It made me realize how important it is to have these kind of counter or even correctives. It's like the way I felt reading Beloved in terms of, like, as a corrective to American history. And I think Beloved is another natural fit for this because it is a ghost story. It's scary. I think it does play with trope less overtly than this, and it forces you to think differently about history, using some supernatural elements. That makes you wonder, maybe history is the most supernatural thing of all.

[Gilbert Cruz]

History is the true horror show.

[Joumana Khatib]

I mean, not. No.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Yeah.

[MJ Franklin]

Thank you for those recommendations. I've read Beloved, but not the first one. Can you say the title one more time?

[Joumana Khatib]

Yes. So that is Pushing the Bear by Diane Glancy Gilbert.

[MJ Franklin]

What about you? Anything you'd recommend?

[Gilbert Cruz]

Absolutely. There's also a horror novel set in Montana around the same time. This is a book from 2023 by Victor Lavalle titled Lone Women. We had Victor on the podcast here when he released that book. And this is a story of a woman named Adelaide. Her parents have just died. She's fleeing California with a giant steamer trunk. And inside that Steamer trunk is something terrible. We don't find out what it is until later in the book. And she goes to Montana, where at the time, if you worked a section of land for a certain amount of time, you could own that land. You could essentially become a homesteader. It was rare opportunity for women at the time. So you're there in the vast, windy wasteland of Montana. There is a definite horror element that is very close to what we see in this book. And it just feels like the perfect double feature.

[MJ Franklin]

This is one that I want to pick up and if I had more time, unlimited hours on the day, like, that's next on my reading list. So I'm excited for that one. So I have two. The first is the Reformatory by Tananarive, due. This is. It's like Colson Whitehead's nickel Boys meets Horror. And it's set at the. Inspired by the same school, we follow a young black boy in the 50s who is sent to this brutal boarding school as punishment. I think instead of going to jail, he can go to the school. And young black boys are terribly abused there. It is not guaranteed that you will survive and make it through. And he is sent here after being set up for this crime. He was trying to defend his sister who was being harassed by a white man. There was a fight and then he is sent away. But once he's there, there are a ton of ghosts of boys who have died there in the past, and he has to channel them and help them. But then also that puts him at risk. I don't want to say more, but it is using horror and ghosts to explore black American history in a similar way that the Buffalo Hunter X Hunter uses vampires to explore indigenous history. The other book that I would recommend, and we've mentioned it a few times on this episode, is Dracula. I had never read Dracula until I saw in the acknowledgments that that was a big inspiration for this book and that Stephen Graham Jones teaches a vampire literature course, which I really want to take.

[Gilbert Cruz]

What a dream job.

[MJ Franklin]

I know that sounds incredible. And I realized I'd never read Dracula. And so I read it for the first time and I loved it. It feels so contemporary, the energy of it. That epistolary structure really works. It just goes. And there are scenes that are so creepy and spine tingling. So go read that. I feel like Dracula is a character and a story that is so known in the Zeitgeist and in the culture. But unless you've read the full original book, go check it out. Go do it. So those are my recommendations.

[Gilbert Cruz]

Great recommendations.

[MJ Franklin]

And with that, I think that's all the time we have, unfortunately. Gilbert Joumana, this has been great. Thank you so much for talking about these books. Horror Vampires, the Buffalo Hunter Hunter.

[Joumana Khatib]

And thank you to our listeners for listening with a good heart. As Arthur Bokarn would say, if you.

[MJ Franklin]

Want to continue talking about the Buffalo Hunter X Hunter again, we have an article up on the New York Times. I'm not going to read out the headline once again, but you know where to find us. Jump in the comments there, continue the conversation and as promised, the announcement of our November Book Club book. In November, the Book Review Book Club will be reading and discussing Hamnet by Maggie o'. Farrell. This came out a few years ago and was actually a New York Times Best Book of the year, but now there is a new movie version and so we thought let's revisit it. Let's dive in. We hope you'll join us and until next time, happy reading.

[Gilbert Cruz]

That was mj4fraglin hosting our monthly book club discussion in conversation with Moi and Jomonica Teeb about the Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times Book Review. Happy Halloween and thanks for listening.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Discover a Better paradise, the debut novel from legendary video game creator Dan Houser, writer of the Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto series. Set in the near future, A Better paradise tells the story of the ill fated development of an ambitious but addictive video game project that goes very wrong. Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One, calls it a harrowing techno futurist fever dream of paranoid creators being hunted down by their creation. A Better Paradise Available now from all good booksellers.