PECKERWOOD BOOK CLUB: How Many Vampires Are Too Many? Plus A Shocking Buffalo Hunter!

Salutations, book sloots! It's time for another edition of The Peckerwood Book Club, a place where you can recommended new or older books that you simply j'adore, and maybe warn us off a few that just weren't up to snuff. So let 'er rip. What'cha been reading? Tellustellustellus!

Meanwhile, I'm at a point in my life where I'll give a book 30 pages or so, and if I'm not fully engrossed or intrigued, it gets tossed aside, even if its a big-name author. 30 pages is enough, I think, and I don't believe I'm being too quick to judge in the manner of those raised on Fuckbook or TackyTwat or what have you. I saw one video in which someone said they'll give a book just 5 pages. Now that, I'd argue, is too little.

Speaking of tossing things aside, when someone these days recommends a book with vampires, I almost immediately shut down. Is there a more shopworn, done-to-death sub-genre of horror? I thought we'd reached peak disposable vampire books years ago when "Twilight" hit the shelves. To amuse myself once, I tried to read the first in the series. It was so poorly written - this was before "Fifty Shades of Grey," mind you - that I ended up reading a full 30 pages, but only because I couldn't believe how clumsily the sentences were strung together. Still, the vampires, they just kept coming.

And, yes, even these days. A friend of mine recently recommended a new vampire book to me, and since I trusted his opinion, I agreed to give it my requisite 30 pages and be done with it.

But thirty pages in, I thought, meh, I'll give it another 30, and before I knew what was what, I'd finished it in three sittings. Yes, I'd become enthralled by a vampire story.

In "The Buffalo Hunter Hunter" by Stephen Graham Jones, we meet Arthur, a Montana pastor in the early 1900s, who listens spellbound as Fullblood, aka Good Stab, a Native American, recounts his life as a vampire, having first been attacked by another vampire many years ago. At first, Arthur doesn’t believe a word Fullblood is saying, much less that he’s a vampire, but he does begin to suspect that he’s the perpetrator in a rash of gruesome slayings wherein the victims have been drained of blood and their bodies skinned. The novel is overflowing with fascinating historical detail, along with terrifying, spectacularly gory set-pieces.

The characters are compelling, including Fullblood, the reluctant vampire who wants to both save the buffalo and his people - and who at one point is stunned to realize that he looks Caucasian given that he’s consumed a steady diet of white men’s blood, one of many startling story turns. In this arena, “types” of blood are very much the point in a tale where preserving a bloodline, or an entire race, drives Fullblood in several of his battles. For his part, Arthur is not the milquetoast pastor he at first seems to be, and is later implicated for his past as a ruthless hunter and participant in the Marias Massacre.

In addition to a change in appearance and race, "The Buffalo Hunter Hunter" introduces additional vampire lore. If you consume too much blood from elks or deer, don’t be too surprised if you start to grow antlers. "The Buffalo Hunter Hunter" is a terrific ride, and a great way to welcome the chilly Fall season.

Meanwhile, your Bibliosexual Bendy Boy™ is always looking for excitement at night between the sheets, so be sure to recommend all the hot books that you're reading, because, yes, he can go all night long. Till next time, book hors!

Photo Credits: Saga Press, Christian Hogue/Instagram