According to bestselling horror author Stephen Graham Jones, good stories don't happen in heaven — they happen in hell. His latest novel, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, is a chilling vampire story based on real events that happened to the Blackfeet Nation in the United States. 

The book brings a whole new dimension to the phrase "you are what you eat": Jones's vampires end up resembling what they've been feeding on. The author says that giving his main character this attribute allowed him to distill "what it really means to be a vampire." 

"My main character, Good Stab— he wants to be a protector for the Blackfeet," says Jones, in an interview with

Q guest host Talia Schlanger

. "But in order to remain Blackfeet, he has to feed upon Blackfeets. So he has to be the boogeyman for the Blackfeet while also being the protector."

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter explores the metaphorical link between vampires and colonialism. It's not a book of cheap thrills — it's a haunting historical story with a surreal twist. Jones says he had to go deep to tell such a dark story.

"There's an old movie called Piñero... where [Piñero] says, 'Writers are pearl divers',"  Jones explains. "They row out in their boat from shore to where it's 50 feet deep, and they dive down and they get a pearl.... And the people on shore are like, 'Yes, we love this pearl.... Can you get us another?' And so that writer rows out. There's no pearls at 50 feet. They have to go to 75 feet, where it is deeper.... And this continues and continues until the rider is having to go row far enough out from shore that the dive is physically hurting them. And they come back with their ears and their nose bleeding, and they deliver one more pearl."

Although it's a book that draws on horrific history, Jones is tired of the media putting Indigenous stories in a "sacred space." He says it's patronizing to automatically "give the stories a pass."

"That to me is super insulting," says Jones. "I would much rather my work fail on its own merit, than succeed just because it's Indigenous."

When writing historical fiction, Jones was wary of reinforcing stereotypes about Indigenous people. But, like any good author who dives for pearls, he wasn't afraid of doing difficult work to bring something exciting to light.

"I have a Boy Scout creed when I'm on the page," Jones says. "I wanna leave a place a little bit better than I found it, and definitely do no damage. I don't wanna start any fires. But at the same time, that's how you do good work— you play with fire."