THE BULLET SWALLOWER

Historical fiction suffused with contemporary themes.

Antonio Sonoro is the descendent of a long line of legendarily bad men in Dorado, Mexico. He, too, is a bad man, and he will become a figure of legend once he survives a shootout with the Texas Rangers that destroys his face and leaves his brother dead. As El Tragabalas—“The Bullet Swallower”—he inspires both fear and admiration. His grandson will make a different kind of name for himself as a singing cowboy. Jaime’s life as a movie star is as pleasant as Antonio’s was hard, but his tranquil existence is disturbed by two unexpected arrivals: a book detailing the evil exploits of the Sonoro men through history and a stranger who calls himself Remedio. Chapters that alternate between 1895 and 1964 show Antonio battling between his need for revenge and his desire for repentance, and Jaime struggling to understand what his family’s past means for himself, his father, and his children. James makes such deft use of tropes from Westerns, Gothic literature, and magical realism that they don’t feel like tropes at all. She clearly understands why these motifs persist, and she gives them life with prose that’s both spare and intensely rich. This novel is valuable for its gorgeous language and gripping story alone, but the questions it asks could hardly be timelier. Should we be expected to pay for the sins of our ancestors? To whom do we owe reparations? How do we break generational cycles of abuse and trauma? There’s not much overt discussion of race in this novel, but the impact of racism on Antonio’s life is impossible to miss, as is his family’s complicity in exploiting both the land and its Indigenous inhabitants.

Mesmerizing and important.