In The Bullet Swallower (Simon & Schuster, Jan. 23), Elizabeth Gonzalez James mines her family history to tell a story about a bloody colonial past that straddles Mexico and the United States while also exploring how the past reverberates in the present. In 1895, Texas Rangers leave Antonio Sonoro with a near-fatal injury and a deep desire for revenge. In 1964, Jaime Sonoro longs to make a film in which he can star as his notorious grandfather. The book is a Western, but James includes a few fantastical flourishes, such as a weirdly beguiling stranger who calls himself Remedio and a history of the Sonoro family’s evil deeds dating back to Cain killing Abel.

The author’s debut novel, Mona at Sea (2021), was a coming-of-age tale set during the Great Recession. Although her latest is a very different kind of book, James’ take on the Western feels both contemporary and urgent. The author spoke with Kirkus from her home in Massachusetts; our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You use historical fiction to explore some issues that are vitally relevant today. Did you set out to write a novel about generational trauma and colonialism and making reparations, or was that just an organic product of the story you were telling?

Definitely the latter. There was no way I could tell the story of a Mexican man who is shot in the face by Texas Rangers without getting into colonialism and racism. When I was researching my family, I discovered that some of my ancestors were incredibly wealthy. They owned gold mines in Northern Mexico. I don’t think you have to know a ton about mining operations in Latin America to know that working conditions were…not great. My first thought when I learned this was, If something bad happens to me, I have it coming.

This definitely played into the idea of generational trauma—of inheriting bad legacies and trying to figure out how to overcome them.I wrote the first draft of this novel during the fall of 2016—before the election. But I wrote the novel that it became during the Trump years. That shaped the tone, I guess, or the theme, because suddenly I was living in a world where people were screaming, “Build the wall!” The book absolutely changed in response to the world around me.

I love the secondary characters. English adventurer Peter Ainsley is kind of ridiculous—he feels like he’s ridden in from an entirely different story—but he’s such a perfect foil for Antonio—a white sidekick, comic relief. Where did Peter come from?

I imagined this story as one man against the elements. I didn’t want Antonio to have a sidekick. But once this character popped into the story, I couldn’t get rid of him. I hate it when authors say things like, Peter wanted to stay in the story. I’m the master of the story. The characters aren’t telling me what to do. But I just couldn't get rid of him because he was so funny and so different from the other characters.

Also, I was aware of not wanting to create a situation where all the bad guys in the book are white, and all the good guys are Mexican. Peter allowed me to show a white person who is well-intentioned—if also completely clueless. His privilege blinds him to so much of what’s going on around him.

Another character I want to know more about is Remedio, although I ask while understanding that mystery is essential to this character.

I always knew, from the beginning, that I wanted this to be magical realism. And that I wanted to have the devil be a character. But, writing the devil—it’s kind of hard, right? Nobody is worse than the devil, so there’s not a whole lot you can do with that character. There’s nowhere for him to go.

So, then I thought, The devil takes people to Hell. Maybe I could have a character who takes people wherever they go. Does he work for the devil? Does he work for God? What is his exact job function? I don’t resolve that because I honestly don’t know. Constructing the moral universe of this book forced me to confront—well, it forced me to confront the entirety of my understanding of morality and what happens after we die and all of that stuff.

What was that process like?

It’s funny. I started the book [as a] Catholic, and I converted to Judaism in the middle of writing it—I think because I had to actually start answering the questions I had. I had to know the answers so that I could write the book from a place of authority. And I realized that Catholicism wasn’t really giving me answers that felt satisfying to me.

At the end of the book you include an author’s note in which you explain how this book came to be. Your actual family history is so crazy that I half suspected it was fictional, too.  Did the facts you uncovered make it harder to write the book you wanted to write?

It made it harder, because I wanted to tell a true story about the bandido called El Tragabalas and my cousin, Eulalio González [the Mexican actor known as Pipporo], who wanted to make a film about our legendary ancestor. I wanted to tell a true story—with some magical elements.  But I couldn’t. First of all, I couldn’t corroborate what I found in my research. But I also realized that their stories wouldn’t line up in a way that would be satisfying as a work of art. We know what’s at stake for Antonio, and that just doesn’t compare to a movie star turning Antonio’s story into a comedy—which is what actually happened. So, Eulalio became Jaime, and the movie turned into…well, something different.

I will say that I spent way too much time on ancestry.com, going back and back into my family’s history. I found out that way back we were royal, which is hitting the genealogy jackpot. Most of what I learned didn’t make it into the book, but I had so much fun writing little vignettes about ancestors of whom I actually knew very little. I just enjoyed imagining the worst things powerful people did centuries ago, like…oh, who was it? She bathed in blood?

Elizabeth Báthory?

Right! I guess some of this does come out in Maria’s book about the Sonoros. By the way, I have already been asked if this is a real book and, no, it’s not real. But she got to be my mouthpiece. I definitely tipped my hand a little here—making the Sonoros pure evil—but it’s my book, and I wanted to do it. Her book kind of helps me get at the story I wanted to tell, but that story is so much bigger than what I was able to get down on paper. Oh well.

Jessica Jernigan is a writer and editor who lives and works on Anishinaabe land in central Michigan.