The Bullet Swallower is described as a magical realism western with prose in the vein of Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, and Gabriel García Márquez. Though the breadth of those comparisons seems unfathomable, The Bullet Swallower is a unique novel, a truly quirky western, written across two different time lines, the 1960s and the 1890s. The novel is both humorous and heart-breaking. Having read the westerns of Louis LaAmour and Zane Gray as a teenager, I love books that blast the typical western out of the saddle.
In the 1890s timeline, Antonio Sonoro is the newest incarnation of his wealthy family, descended from Spaniards who have terrorized the indigenous population in search of ever more wealth. However, the ill-gotten wealth of his family has disappeared. He leaves the family hacienda, marries, and moves into a tiny jacal with his wife. A drought descends on his hometown of Dorado, Mexico, and it’s harder and hard to make a living. He runs out of money and potential. When he hears of a train carrying Mexican goods to Houston, Texas, he decides to hijack those goods. His younger brother, Hugo, a good, educated man, decides to accompany him. In the attempt, Hugo is killed and Antonio wounded, becoming the legendary bandido El Tragabalas (the Bullet Swallower).
In the 1960s timeline, Jaime Sonoro (Antonio’s grandson) becomes wealthy again, as Mexico’s most famous actor/singer. When an antiquarian book dealer brings a book to him, he’s both fascinated and repelled by the purported history of his family, a 5000 year old lineage of evil men, dating from the time of Cain.
The magical realism aspect is a character named Remedio, who might be an angel, might be the devil, but his job is to ensure that someone pays for the crimes the Sonoro family has committed.
This is a sweeping family saga that tackles multiple issues simultaneously: prejudice, border politics, the ethics, trauma, and colonialism. There are also underlying hints of epigenetics, the long-term effect of trauma on the genes of the descendants of those who suffered the original trauma, and a few religious overtones. The book looks at good, evil, family, friendship, loss, grief, and abandonment. Though Antonio Sonoro is a bad guy, he is an engaging protagonist who undergoes a dramatic character arc and ultimately brings about redemption through sacrifice. The author’s note is good reading in itself as James relates how The Bullet Swallower both is and isn’t her personal family history.
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The Bullet Swallower (Simon & Schuster, January 23, 2024) is available through:
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You can read my reviews of other genre-bending western novels here:
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