The Bullet Swallower: A Novel

Elizabeth Gonzalez James digs into the used book store of her own family tree to create the historical fiction behind The Bullet Swallower. This western adventure bends time like a flame and casts a multigenerational shadow on a traditional shoot-em-up revenge story.

In search of treasures in Houston, Antonio Sonoro is a bandido who crosses over from Dorado, Mexico to duel it out against Texas Rangers. Meanwhile, almost seventy years in the future, his descendent, Jaime Sonoro, is a famous musical actor in Mexico City. When Jaime is mysteriously gifted a book that sets him on an obsessive journey discovering his family history, the timelines of 1895 and 1964 start to fuse together.

Although the bandido timeline of the late 1800s could stand independently as its own fun-to-read action adventure, the family drama under the weight of history gives The Bullet Swallower an interesting twist. It adds layers as the adventure explores questions of fate and destiny, individualism and the collective karma of family curses.

Cormac McCarthy meets Gabriel García Marquez is a great literary comparison for The Bullet Swallower. If this magical western were a movie, it would be Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained meets Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation.