Reader’s Notebook, 5/6/26

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter – Stephen Graham Jones
My second Tournament of Books read of the year, I enjoyed this one more than the first. It falls into a genre I don’t usually have much interest in. However, its presentation was so unique that I really enjoyed it.

The novel is built around a diary found when a Montana building is being torn down in 2012. It was written by a Lutheran pastor in 1912, and in it he documents the “confession” of a Native American man, Good Stab. Good Stab had encountered a very odd individual over 40 years earlier. That very odd individual turned out to be a vampire. Despite being over 80 years old, Good Stab looks quite young. Of course, he, too, became a vampire after that encounter.

In his confession, he relates how his life changed after becoming a vampire: he could no longer stay in his village with his family, how he was transformed by the creatures he drank blood from, how he preyed upon the White men who were destroying the buffalo of the plains that the Natives relied upon, how he was eventually forced to prey on his own people.

That is all weird enough. The story is bookended by modern moments, in which the diary is presented to the pastor’s great-great granddaughter for documenting. The closing section adds an extra layer of weirdness when she has a pair of extremely odd encounters of her own that end in a bizarre yet pleasing set of acts.

The crossing of the mystical worlds of both the old and new worlds makes for a fascinating tale told extremely well. Even to a non-vampire story person like me.

Even the Good Girls Will Cry – Melissa Auf der Maur
Sometimes it is fun to read a random book you wouldn’t have normally picked up. I learned about this one when Auf der Maur, who was the bassist in Hole for five years and the Smashing Pumpkins for one before going solo, appeared on Yasi Salek’s Bandsplain podcast to discuss Hole’s “Boys On The Radio.” Auf der Maur was really interesting to listen to so I figured her book would be worth reading, if only for her takes on 90s indie and alt rock.

It turned out to be more of a proper memoir, detailing her unique childhood in Montreal and her introduction to the art world before getting to her unexpected path to become a musician and the roller coaster ride from nobody in an unknown Montreal band to Courtney Love’s sidekick. I had forgotten she was in a serious relationship with Dave Grohl for several years. I read his book four years ago, which shows how much these rock memoirs stick with me.

Not the best music memoir I’ve ever read, but it seemed like one of the most honest and was worth the time.