THE BULLET SWALLOWER

Antonio Sonoro is a fearsome bandido, the latest in a long line of ruthless men. He’s good with his gun and is drawn to trouble, but he’s also out of money and out of options. It’s 1895, and a drought has ravaged the tiny town of Cántaro, Mexico, where he lives with his wife and five children, and so when he hears about a train laden with gold and other treasures, he sets off for Houston to rob it, with his younger brother Romero in tow. But the robbery goes awry, and the brothers are chased down by three Texas Rangers. Antonio is shot in the face and left for dead. When he miraculously survives, man becomes legend and Antonio is christened El Tragabalas, or the Bullet Swallower. Nursed back to health and intent on finding the Texas Rangers at any cost, he rides across South Texas to seek revenge, as even Death itself watches with interest.

In the tradition of writers like Gabriel García Márquez and Larry McMurtry, The Bullet Swallower is an intense and unrelenting revenge story—but one filled with soulfulness, tempered with magical realism, and imbued with a mythic Western quality that makes the story feel less like it’s been written and more like it’s been born. It’s about Elizabeth’s family, but it's also about border politics, intergenerational trauma, racism, and colonialism. She’s working in the classic Western form but tells her story from a Mexican point-of-view, reinvigorating the genre for the 21st century.

El Tragabalas was a real person and is the author’s great-grandfather, Antonio Gonzalez. She grew up hearing the basics of her great-grandfather’s tale and did extensive research while writing. Elizabeth has taken dramatic license for her novel, but many of the stories depicted are based on actual events. Her cousin, the Mexican movie star Lalo Gonzalez, already made a comedy from the same story in 1966; and Texas folklorist, Jovita Gonzalez, wrote a short story about Elizabeth’s great-grandfather in 19