Deliverance of Sinners: Ambrose Bierce Lives!

We are by nature trivia-hounds, fascinated by those odd little nubbets which litter the universe – facts and fancies which provide endless interconnections between people, places, and events, often to no great purpose. And thus we were delighted to receive a copy of Don Swaim’s new collection, Deliverance of Sinners: Essays & Sundry on Ambrose Bierce (Errata Press, 2021) – the book you didn’t realise you wanted (but you should).

Hang on, you mutter – is this going to be some dry, scholarly meditation on yet another dead white writer? Well, fear not. Deliverance of Sinners may be scholarly under the surface, but Swaim is (as was Bierce) a journalist as well as an author, and has the knack of drawing you willingly into the most peculiar rabbit-holes. This is, quite frankly, a great read, darting in and out of so many aspects of Ambrose Bierce’s life, his work, and his contemporaries that we’d be surprised if you didn’t find something of interest.

Amongst enthusiasts of the weird, Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) may be best known for his tales of supernatural and psychological horror, such as ‘The Damned Thing’ and ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’, and for his origination of Carcosa, in ‘An Inhabitant of Carcosa’, which went on to be a keystone of Robert W Chambers’ famous King in Yellow stories*. And of course, many have speculated about the (-1914?) element of his biography, as Bierce’s date and place of death have never been established.

* See also our article on Carcosa, its roots, and the Carcosan art of Michael Hutter:

http://greydogtales.com/blog/joe-pulver-his-highness-in-yellow/

“Bierce will remain an equivocal figure in American and world literature chiefly because his dark view of humanity is, by its very nature, unpopular. Most people like writing that is cheerful and uplifting, even though a substantial proportion of the world’s great literature is quite otherwise.”

S T Joshi

Drawn together from articles and pieces written by Swaim over the years, Deliverance of Sinners produces a picture of Bierce and his times which is more entertaining and intriguing than many a biography.

It teases, speculates and subverts, as well as providing a wealth of sourced material. The overall style is wry, yet Swaim’s erudition and his understanding of Bierce shine through.

Contrast, for example, a detailed look at the unusual figure of Colonel Robert G Ingersoll (1833-1899), the rousing agnostic author and speaker who was, like Bierce, a veteran of Shiloh, with Swaim’s light-hearted explanation of how rumour of Bierce’s death relates to the Marfa Lights of Texas.

“The ‘Marfa Lights’ of west Texas have been called many names over the years, such as ghost lights, weird lights, mystery lights, or Chinati lights. The favorite place from which to view the lights is a widened shoulder on Highway 90 about nine miles east of Marfa. The lights are most often reported as distant spots of brightness, distinguishable from ranch lights and automobile headlights on Highway 67 (between Marfa and Presidio, to the south) primarily by their aberrant movements.” Judith Brueske

Or try an imagined interview between Swaim and Bierce on politics, religion, terrorism and other issues, using Bierce’s own words to provide the responses, followed by the author going on a road-trip with Bierce through contemporary America, in ‘Return to Carcosa’. Bar-fights and pithy remarks galore.

Want something more complex and literary after that? Then dip into a fascinating article on Stephen Vincent Benét* (1898-1943), the author of ‘The Devil and Daniel Webster’ (and of the Pulitzer-winning epic poem ‘John Brown’s Body’).

It’s a story they tell in the border country, where Massachusetts
joins Vermont and New Hampshire.

Yes, Dan’l Webster’s dead–or, at least, they buried him. But every
time there’s a thunder storm around Marshfield, they say you can hear his rolling voice in the hollows of the sky. And they say that if you go to his grave and speak loud and clear, “Dan’l Webster–Dan’l
Webster!” the ground’ll begin to shiver and the trees begin to shake.

And after a while you’ll hear a deep voice saying, “Neighbor, how
stands the Union?” Then you better answer the Union stands as she
stood, rock-bottomed and copper sheathed, one and indivisible, or he’s liable to rear right out of the ground. At least, that’s what I was
told when I was a youngster.

* A selection of Benét’s tales can be found in Thirteen O’Clock: Stories of Several Worlds – dry and odd in places, but often imaginative.

Deliverance of Sinners also includes what is perhaps one of S T Joshi’s most extensive interviews (conducted by Swaim), covering Lovecraft (who described Bierce’s fictional work as “grim and savage”), Bierce himself, George Sterling and all manner of other topics.

Then there’s a piece on Bierce’s appalling ‘Little Johnny’ sketches, dreadful mock-bumpkin ‘shorts’ which no one but Bierce seemed to like – and no one seems to know why he kept writing the ghastly things – followed by a far more worthy offering, Swaim’s own one act play concerning the relationship between Bierce and the feminist writer Gertrude Atherton (1857-1948). Based on true events and drawing on Atherton’s 1932 autobiography Adventures of a Novelist, this is both touching and informative; we had read this one before, and found it just as good to revisit.

Atherton will also be known to supernaturalists for her disquieting stories, such as ‘The Striding Place’, which can be read in full here:

the striding place (free to read)

There are many more snippets and curios in Deliverance of Sinners, enough to absorb the idle reader for some time, or to set the acadmeic on new trails. In short, this is a fine read and an excellent resource – studious and playful, clever and self-aware.

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You might also be interested in Swaim’s novelisation of Bierce’s last days, The Assassination of Ambrose Bierce: A Love Story

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