The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

 

Title:  The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

Author:  Stephen Graham Jones

Narrated by:  Shane Ghostkeeper, Marin Ireland, Owen Teale

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 15 hours and 29 minutes

Source: Purchased from Audible.com

What is the best book you’ve read in 2025?  The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones is one of the best books I’ve read this year or ever. 

In 2012, Etsy discovers her ancestor’s private journal which has been hidden in the walls of a parsonage.  She decided that she will translate and analyze the journal as she works towards tenure at a university.  Inside the journal, she discovers at first the mundane life of a Lutheran pastor in a western town until he writes of the confessions of Good Stab, a native American turned vampire who has sought him out.  She will discover the true meaning of horror is not always the supernatural.

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I went in blind to this novel, and it worked great as I was continually surprised.

·       This was a weird, but brilliant novel.  It’s really a vampire story told through the lens of American history and the annihilation of Native tribes.

·       Reading this novel made the destruction of the buffalo herds so real and so disturbing.

·       It was a powerful book and reckoning on how the tribes were treated in the United States.

·       This was a horror novel, but what is the horror?  Is it a vampire feeding on the people he finds, or he feels are deserving of punishment?   Or of the white people who indiscriminately kill Good Stab’s village by brutally slaughtering old people, women, and children in their winter camp while the man are away hunting.

·       The horror was really brought home when I discovered it was based on the very real Marias Massacre in Montana in 1870 which I had never heard of before.

·       Good Stab’s search for truth, reckoning, and honesty that the natives were killed as they were thought of as less than human, the whites wanted their land, and they enjoyed the killing. . . haunted me.  It’s the truths that are never said out loud.

·       The fact that men massacred people brutally and then went on living their lives as ordinary citizens is disturbing to think about.  I had this same thought after reading All the Light We Cannot See and realizing Nazis that brutally killed and tortured people, could be your plumber.

·       Good Stab’s part of the novel was a revenge narration that reminded me at times of The Count of Monte Cristo.

·       The book detailed Blackfeet culture and gave us an inside look into a world that once existed that we destroyed.

·       This was told as a story within a story withing a story.  Etsy Beaucarne is in the present day reading a diary written in 1912 of her ancestor Arthur “Three Persons” Beaucarne who wrote confession of Good Stab.  I loved, loved, loved the narration of this audiobook and the tone of the narrative.  Arthur Beaucarne sounds like a stuffy old timey pastor while Good Stab sounds like someone just learning English.  Etsy sounds like a modern-day person.  I also enjoyed the sound effect.  It was fascinating to listen to.  My 17 year old son also listened to this audiobook and greatly enjoyed it.

·       As a vampire, Good Stab is able to watch the destruction of his family, tribe, and way of life as an outsider over time.  He also participates at times in part of the destruction as he is not able to stop his thirst and he kills fellow natives.

·       Good Stab was difficult to follow at times as he talked like a person just learning English and he didn’t know the English words for all of the animals (example – “Long Legs,” etc.)  I guessed some for the animals and was not sure about other animals.  It still worked for me.

·       There is a lot of death blood, and horror to both people and animals in this novel.

·       I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

Favorite Quote: “What I am is the Indian who can't die. I'm the worst dream America ever had."

Overall, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones is a beautifully written, complex, haunting, and multilayered story.  It is a masterpiece that I soon won’t forget.  I read a lot of books, and I am always struck by books that are creatively different and that have a message that keeps me thinking.  Buffalo Hunter Hunter was just such a book.

 

Squanto: A Native Odyssey by Andrew Lipman

 

Title: Squanto:  A Native Odyssey

Author:  Andrew Lipman

Narrated by:  David Colacci

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Length: Approximately 8 hours and 59 minutes

Source: Review Copy from NetGalley.  Thank you!

What historical personage would you like to learn more about?  With Thanksgiving coming up, I decided to listen to an audiobook about Squanto, as I did not know much about the true historical figure.

Historian Andrew Lipman researched and describes Squanto’s childhood, kidnapping, career, downfall, and death using historical records.  Squanto had much more of a fascinating life than what is depicted in children’s books about Thanksgiving.

My thoughts on this book:

·       Squanto is known as both Squanto and Tisquantum in historical record.  He was part of the Patuxet Tribe of the Wampanoags. 

·       Squanto’s childhood was told in general of how his tribe was known to live at the time.

·       The book also discussed the meaning of the Manitou and how the name is passed down in place names such as the down the road town from me, Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

·       He was kidnapped by explorer, Captain Thomas Hunt, and sold in Spain.  By the time he made it back to his tribe, they were gone.  They had all died from a disease brought over by the European explorers.  Hunt had been exploring the Northeast with Captain John Smith.  They parted ways when Hunt decided he was going to make money by tricking Native Americans to board his ship to trade and sailing away with them to sell them as slaves.  Afterwards, explorers were instantly attacked when they appeared.

·       The Pilgrims of history are so different from what I learned in school.  As Squanto’s tribe had all died, the Pilgrims just showed up and settled on the tribes cleared land and stole other tribes’ corn to survive.  The Pilgrims had a hard time surviving, but it would have been even harder if they would have had to clear their own land and were not able to eat the Natives’ corn.

·       The last part of the book was about how the history of Squanto was passed down and how the story was “reimagined” and retold through modern day.  It is interesting when the real history doesn’t match the simplified tales that are told.  I’ve noticed that people will say this is “rewriting” history, when it is just going back to the historic record rather than inaccuracies that were passed down.

·       I thought it was interesting that there were native pirates.  They taught themselves how to sail ships that they overtook and surprised European explorers.

·       I didn’t realize that Squanto died so young and so soon after the historical Thanksgiving.

·       David Colacci, the audiobook narrator, had a newsperson type of voice and made the audiobook interesting.

Overall, Squanto:  A Native Odyssey by Andrew Lipman is an informative book and interesting audiobook experience which tells the fascinating history behind the myth of Squanto.  I highly recommend it.

 

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

 

Title:  Wandering Stars

Author:  Tommy Orange

Narrated by:  Shaun Taylor-Corbett, MacLeod Andrews, Alma Cuervo, Curtis Michael Holland, Calvin Joyal, Phil Ava, Emmanuel Chumaceiro, Christian Young, Charley Flyte

Publisher: Random House Audio

Length: Approximately 9 hours and 37 minutes

Source: Audiobook purchased from Amazon.com. 

Are you a book club member who reads every pick or do you skip reading some of the books?

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange was the Rogue Book Club pick for May, but the meeting was cancelled.  I usually read the book each month, but I hadn’t finished it yet, so I was okay with the meeting being rescheduled to July to give me time to finish it.  I discovered at the meeting that I was one of the only people that read the book as most others couldn’t get into it. It is not a light summer read. I loved it.

Wandering Stars tells the story of one Native American family and how the harsh treatment of ancestors in the past trickles down to impact the lives of modern day descendants.  The novel starts with the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado in 1864.  Star, a young boy survives and is sent to jail where he is forced to learn English and Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt.  Pratt goes on to found the Carlisle School where Star’s son Charles is sent and abused.  In the present, decedents struggle with a mass shooting, PTSD, and drug addiction.

My thoughts on the novel:

·       This novel was written in a stream of conscious narrative with beautiful language.  These first-person narratives felt like the personal story of each of the characters.

·       I have not read the first book, There, There.  I need to read it.  I was able to read this as a standalone novel, but I have a feeling I missed a lot of connections by not having read the first novel.

·       I enjoyed that the novel was a unique way of storytelling.

·       This book really hit home for me on how traumatic events of the past still affect lives of people living today. 

·       One character in the middle of the 20^th century goes to the library to find a book about Native Americans by a Native American. The librarian says there are none.  They must instead read their own history written by “the very kind of men some of us had seen wipe our people out.”

·       Author Tommy Orange is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. He was born and raised in Oakland, California, which is the setting for a large part of this novel.

·       There was a full cast for the audiobook and it made it a great listening experience.  I think the format of the novel worked particularly well as an audiobook.

Favorite Quotes:

“These kinds of events were called battles, then later – sometimes- massacres, in America’s biggest war.  More years at war with Indians than as a nation. Three hundred and thirteen.”

“Bear Shield had told me the woman who wrote the book knew Indians. That she’d understood everything from way over there, where she was from.  And that being made to take a name like they’d wanted, being made to be the kind of person they wanted us to be, it was just like that woman’s monster, was just like she called Dr. Victor Frankenstein in the book, that was why he chose the name Victor, he was the man making the monster be agreeing to take their kind of name and living life the way white men like Pratt demanded.”

“Outside he sees the buffalo carcasses stripped of their hides, and beyond them the bones of buffalo piled up as far as he can see, and in the distance like an approaching storm cloud, countless vultures coming to swarm the waste.  It was the end of a world out there.”

Overall, Wandering Stars had beautiful writing, deep thoughts, and a compelling story.  I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo–Anstine

 

Do you ever have moments of déjà vu?  Have you ever had your fortune told?

I definitely have déjà vu, but have never had my fortune told.

Woman of Light was the February pick for the Page-turners Book Club at the Kewaunee Public Library.

Woman of Light is a family drama set in the American West.  Luz Lopez is a tea leaf reader that has inherited a gift for seeing the future that has passed down through her family.  This story is told through shifting timelines as you learn about different generations of the family from the 1860s through the 1930s through Luz’s visions.  Luz also starts a new job to support her and her Aunt after her brother Diego is driven out of town.  She becomes involved in a love triangle between her boss and a musician.  Who will she choose?  How will the family memories be preserved?

My favorite storyline was actually Luz’s grandparents as her grandmother was a sharpshooter who lost her first husband when she accidentally shot him during an act when she was attacked by a performance bear.  I loved how spunky she was but was sad for what happened to this generation of the family.

I thought the look at racism was very interesting in the story as well.  The family has native and Mexican heritage, but even though they have lived for several generations in America, they are still considered foreigners. 

I liked the nonlinear approach to the novel and that it was so different from books that I usually read.  I wasn’t very keen on the ending.  I’m still thinking about it.  I like that the family traditions will be carried on and that Diego was back, but I didn’t like Luz’s life choices.

I liked the list of the generations at the start of the book.  I flipped back and forth to it a lot to try to make sure I knew who certain characters were.

Favorite Quote:

“She had never had a true suitor, and waiting for love felt like searching the horizon for a figure in the distances, walking toward her from the darkened clouds.” – I just thought this sentence was beautiful.

Book Source:  Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

 Happy Indigenous People Day!  I taught environmental engineering technology for six years at a local college that happens to be on Indigenous land.  I had many students from several tribes, and it was very eye opening to me to learn about the cultures of modern-day Indigenous tribes as well as past treatment that I had no idea about.  These stories need to be heard and be a part of our present day culture. 

 Daunis Fontaine is an eighteen-year-old girl living in Sault St. Marie Michigan trying to determine her next steps in life.  Daunis is half Ojibwe and is trying to find where she belongs in her two worlds. She was a powerful high school hockey player and is set to go to the University of Michigan to major in premed.  After her uncle’s death and grandmother’s hospitalization, Daunis decides to stay near her family and friends and attend Lake Superior State University in town.  After a mysterious death, Daunis uses her knowledge of both science and Native American medicine to try to solve the mystery that is plaguing her community.

 I love, love, loved this novel.  It straddles many different genres and is hard to describe succinctly.  It is a great thriller story with trying to figure out the mystery.  It is a great coming of age story as Daunis tries to figure out what she wants in life and how decisions of her family in the past affect her in the present.  It is a great young adult novel as she tries to figure out what is important in life, love, and family.

 Firekeeper’s Daughter is an #OwnVoices tale and is written by Angeline Boulley who is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.  I loved the immersion in the Ojibwe community, its language, history, traditions, troubles, etc.  There are so many tribes around the United States and their stories are hard to find.  I loved that this novel had a very strong Ojibwe woman that is part of her modern tribe.

 I loved the setting in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The hockey, pasties, locations, etc. were wonderful.  I last visited Sault Ste. Marie in 2001, just a few years before this story was set in 2004.  I attended Michigan Tech in the U.P. and now live in Northeastern Wisconsin.  The culture captured in this novel represents a large part of northern Michigan and Wisconsin.  I love finally having a book that shows that cleaning the snow off of a girl’s car is a declaration of love.  Michigan Tech was mentioned a few times as well, although I was wishing for a road trip to Houghton, I did get one to Green Bay.

 This novel does contain drugs, murder, violence against indigenous women, and sexual assault.

 Favorite Quotes:

“It’s hard when someone says they love you, but they need to contain and control the things that make you you.”

 “Love honors your spirit.  Not just the other person’s but your own spirit too.”

 “Hockey brings my community together.  Native and non-Native.  All ages.  All neighborhoods.  Here is Chi Mukwa, a community recreation building funded by the Sugar Island Ojibwe Tribe, everyone stands united for our team.”

 “No guy should have that kind of power over you.  No matter who his is or how much everyone adores him.  Or how much you might still want him.”

 “I set out to write Firekeeper’s Daughter, because there are simply too few stories told by and about Native Americans, especially from a contemporary point of view.  We exist and have dynamic experiences beyond history books or stories set long ago.” – from the Author’s Note.

 Overall, Firekeeper’s Daughter is a not to be missed thriller with a great strong Native American heroine.

 Book Source:  Purchased from Meijer.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

I have been wanting to read this book for years, no less because my best friend Jenn loaned it to me a while ago and I need to read it and give it back.  I decided to read it during banned books week. It was the perfect week as it is included again on the 2018 list of most banned books.

Junior is growing up on a reservation in Spokane, Washington.  He was born with water on the brain and had to have surgery as a six-month-old that almost killed him.  He could have been brain damaged, but he is a very smart kid. He has other problems (like with his vision) caused by water on the brain and is picked on constantly.  His best friend Rowdy is the one person who understands him and helps to defend him against the bullies.

That all changes when Junior decides to leave the reservation and go to the closest white school to further his educational opportunities. Rowdy and pretty much the entire tribe think of him as a traitor.  Will Junior be able to fit in at his new school and will he be able to fit in with his tribe?

Junior loves to draw cartoons and they are included throughout the text.  I loved how they were part of the story and had provided moments of humor for sometimes very dire situations.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was both humorous and at times a very sad story.  I love how Junior realized his parents had a lot of love and support for him, but he also had to deal with his father’s alcoholism and his family’s poverty.  That lead to one of my favorite lines in the book, “Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance.  No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.”  I realized a lot of the books I read, particularly the books I read in childhood, try to teach you that poverty is something you work through to become a stronger person.  Junior take a hard look at that and does not agree.  I thought this was quite profound.

As I was reading this book, I read about Sherman Alexie and discovered that not only is he considered one of the leading Native American authors of today, but he is also at the center of accusations as part of the Me-Too movement.  Can one separate the actions of the author from his work?  I think yes, otherwise I would be throwing most classics out the window (I’m looking at you Ernest Hemingway).  What do you think?

I read this novel with the eye on – why is it banned and I saw plenty of items that a parent could freak out about.  I had read it was a racist portrayal of Native Americans.  I think that is ironic when it is written by a Native American and is largely based on his childhood.  There is alcoholism in the novel, and Junior has an anti-religion page after some tragic deaths in his family.  He also waxes on about masturbation for a page or so at the start of the book. Any of these items could be something that someone could complain about to a school library. All in all, they would also definitely make it a novel that young adults would enjoy and identify with.

Favorite Quotes:

“I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats.”

“You have to read a book three times before you know it.  The first time you read it for the story.  The plot . . . The second time you read a book you read it for its history.”

“There are all kinds of addicts, I guess.  We all have pain.  And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.”

“If you let people into your life a little bit, they can be pretty damn amazing.”

Overall, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is an excellent novel that made me both laugh and cry.  I loved Junior’s story and how it looked at some of the deep trials that a Native American teenager faced trying to find his place in the world and where he fits in.  It was a great coming of age story.  I loved its look at friendship, family, and loss.

Book Source:  My best friend Jenn loaned me this book.