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In acclaimed new novel, 91�Թ��� Professor Stephen Graham Jones explores ideas of ‘what an Indian is or isn’t’

When horror author Stephen Graham Jones was teaching his graduate seminar on monsters, he made sure to have his class spend some time on The Lesser Dead, a vampire novel written by Christopher Buehlman in 2014. He remembers thinking, “What’s the point of anyone else writing vampires ever again, when Buehlman has already done it so perfectly?”

Nevertheless, he decided to try doing just that. The idea he started out with was a single image of a small church with a dwindling congregation. At the end of the sermon, everyone leaves except for “one Indian guy sitting in the back, staring at the pastor through darkened glasses and (with) a jaded expression,” Jones says. With that and his self-defined challenge to write a vampire novel that had never been done before, his recently published novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter— as —was dreamed into existence.

Novels like this, which are centered around Indigenous stories and values, are important for many reasons, says Jones, a 91�Թ��� professor of distinction in the Department of English. Specifically, he sees writing by Indigenous authors as a reminder that “we, Indians who shouldn’t be around anymore, are still here. Just being visible is an act of resistance.”

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In his new novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones, a 91�Թ��� professor of distinction in the Department of English, centers around Indigenous stories and values.

Jones likes to play into the narrative that Indigenous people don’t always match up with the stereotypes forced onto them in post-colonial America. In fact, he employs stereotypes as a narrative tool often in his novels, including in The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. He uses his pastor character, Arthur, as an embodiment of what he perceives to be American ideas of “what an Indian is or isn’t,” and distorts these preconceived notions to further the novel’s horror.

He also plays with the ideas of stereotypes and performativity later in the novel, when a non-Indigenous character abuses his power and knowledge by pretending to be Indigenous himself. Jones says this event was inspired by the short story “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience” by Rebecca Roanhorse, which also examines stereotypes of what it means to be Indigenous and how society tends to accept caricatures of Indigeneity—mostly because of the stereotypes we’ve been fed in the media all our lives, Jones says.

The irony in both Jones’ and Roanhorse’s work is that the actual Indigenous characters are cast aside and told that they are, in fact, the inauthentic ones.

Stories within stories

Another distinctive characteristic of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is that it’s a nest narrative. Readers get three perspectives throughout the novel, beginning with the Native character’s stories, which are recorded in a journal by the pastor, Arthur, and then read by Arthur’s many-time-great niece, Etsy. “Etsy wasn’t originally part of the story,” Jones says, “but I found that I needed her perspective in 2013 in order to really probe where I wanted to in the story.”

That’s one of his favorite things about writing horror, Jones says: The stakes in horror novels are high, and readers often know immediately where the central conflict lies. This leaves room in the text to take a deeper look and probe who and what makes good horror, and why it makes us feel that sense of fear, disturbance or unease.

Jones likes to explore inner turmoil and complications within his characters. For example, he wants it to be clear from the beginning that Arthur’s definitely not the protagonist in the story, and yet he wants the reader to be endeared to the pastor from the first journal entry. This again plays with the idea of Arthur’s position and preconceived notions of being an American “everyman,” illustrating how Jones can flip stereotypes on their heads to create additional nuances.

Research was a big part of the conceptualization of the novel. Jones knew he wanted to have a location central to the buffalo hunts of the early 20th century, and through both travel knowledge and online research, he landed on the real-life Miles City, Montana. Miles City served as a multicultural hub at the time, where many trappers and hunters sold their trophies, most often beaver and buffalo hides taken from the nearby Blackfoot reservation.

Good Stab, the Indigenous man at the back of the church, hails from that reservation. Jones also discovered that there was a strong Baptist presence in Miles City in the early 20th century and positioned Arthur as a Baptist preacher for that reason.

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