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Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company, by Roy Morris
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When 71-year-old Ambrose Bierce disappeared into revolution-torn Mexico in 1913, he probably had more enemies than any man alive. This was only fair; he had labored long and hard to make himself hateful, and in the end he succeeded all too well. The targets of his printed abuse ranged from the mightiest and most rapacious robber baron to the meekest and least offensive would-be poet, although Bierce reserved his sharpest barbs for "that immortal ass, the average man."
Bierce himself was anything but average. As the only American writer of any stature to fight in and survive the Civil War, his groundbreaking short stories of that war, including his most famous work, 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', have had a lasting influence on every subsequent American author dealing with war.
Profoundly disillusioned by his wartime experiences, Bierce spent the next fifty years struggling to disillusion his fellow Americans of their own cherished ideals -- romantic, religious, or political. In such sepulchrally dark works as The Devil’s Dictionary, he fought a one-man guerrilla war against the smug forces of the status quo. Not for nothing was he called among other things "Bitter Bierce", "the Devil's Lexicographer" and "the Wickedest Man in San Francisco".
Frequently criticized for the intensity of his personal invective, Bierce once advised his detractors to "continue selling shoes, selling pancakes, or selling themselves. As for me I sell abuse." In this perceptive, insightful biography, Roy Morris, Jr., accounts for both the influential art that Ambrose Bierce made from such a harsh and unforgiving vision and the high price he had to pay for it in loneliness, rancor, and spiritual isolation.
A lively and compelling portrait of one of the most acerbic and distinctive voices in American literature, Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company is a clear-eyed but sympathetic account of a complex individual at odds with his country, his family, his times, and himself.
- Sales Rank: #973222 in Books
- Published on: 1996-01-23
- Released on: 1996-01-23
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 10.00" h x 6.75" w x 1.00" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 306 pages
From Publishers Weekly
This objective study of Bierce (1842- 1914), a journalist and short-story writer, draws a parallel between the sardonic writer's dark vision and his unhappy life. According to Morris (Sheridan) the depression Bierce developed during a lonely and unhappy Indiana childhood intensified after his Civil War experiences as a Union Army officer, and Bierce later memoralized it in the short stories "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and "Chickamuuga." Employing careful research, Morris traces his subject's career as a newspaperman in San Francisco and London, where Bierce became known for his articles pilloring a variety of targets including war, religion, poets and politicians, and for penning The Devil's Dictionary, a compilation of cynical definitions. His abusive personality lost him many friends and ended his marriage. The untimely deaths of two of his three children only heightened his misery. In 1913 he disappeared into revolution-torn Mexico and was never heard from again.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Morris, the editor of the journal America's Civil War and author of Sheridan: The Life and Wars of General Phil Sheridan (Crown, 1992), has written an intriguing and deeply felt biography of Bierce. Bierce, in his much-quoted The Devil's Dictionary (1906), defined friendless as "having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense." To many, this was Bierce: dissector of politicians, women, ministers, Christmas, journalists, babies, writers, dogs, and "that immortal ass, the average man." An existential sense of aloneness pervaded Bierce's life from childhood to death, which apparently came in 1913 when he disappeared in war-ravaged Mexico. His remains have never been found. Bierce always believed that part of him died in the Civil War, especially when he considered his horror at Shiloh and Chickamauga. His writings of those experiences influenced countless authors from Crane to Hemingway. Morris intertwines deftly Bierce's writings with an account of his life and times. Recommended for public libraries.?Robert L. Kelly, Ft. Wayne Community Schs., Ind.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Although Ambrose Bierce's contemporaries might disagree with Morris' claim that the irascible writer was a good man "who amused himself by pretending to be a bad one," this terrific literary biography clearly establishes that he deserves to be read today. Bierce was the only writer of stature and talent to actually fight in and survive the Civil War, and Morris does an outstanding job of relating Bierce's most important stories--" An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "An Affair of Outposts," and "Chickamauga" --to actual events. He also traces the themes of romantic betrayal and fatuous patriotism to events in Bierce's episodic life: an ugly breakup with a girlfriend; his bitterness and skepticism toward superior officers and politicians, especially Ulysses S. Grant. As for Bierce's disappearance in 1913 in revolution-torn Mexico, Morris reexamines the early biographies, Bierce's letters, and the available documentation, concluding (as others have) that Bierce didn't go to Mexico at all but, instead, committed suicide in the Grand Canyon. Bierce's life makes a great story, and Morris tells it well, neither overstating his subject's significance nor, as is the fashion, undercutting it. Ron Antonucci
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Definative Bio of Bierce
By Mike
This book gives insight into one of the American literary greats. There are times that the book drags, but I think this is due as much to the author as to the fact that some moments in Bierce's life are so interesting that when you read about the "average" moments in his life, you are left, well , bored. This is a good book for a Bierce fan or someone that would like to learn about an American writer who, deservedly, lived in the shadow of Twain.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Worth reading for the speculation alone -- maybe Bierce didn't die in Mexico
By S. J. Snyder
Conventional wisdom and history books have it that Ambrose Bierce died in Mexico during the Revolution. But Morris, in this in-depth biography, offers a fairly plausible alternative. (Sorry, not giving the store away as part of the review; you're going to have to get your hands on this book.)
Much of the rest of the speculation in which Morris engages is psychological. He first analyses Bierce's childhood and parents, then takes note of his Civil War head wound, and wonders just how much the two of these things combined to contribute to the Ambrose Bierce we know today.
That said, while not denying either childhood or adult causes of personality development -- or personality change -- I give more credence to genetic causes, i.e., the ideas of evolutionary psychology, properly applied.
I find it likely that Bierce was pretty much born with tendencies toward the character he later exhibited. His upbringing and his war wound may have intensified it, but I think he came by much of his cynicism naturally. Life events probably added the dollop of churlishness to it.
I teeter on a rating and end up at 4 stars. If I were to fine tune, it would probably be about 3 2/3 stars. The psycho-speculation is interesting, but in addition to being incomplete, if not somewhat wrong, too much of a focus on it means less focus on historical biography or on literary analysis.
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
"As for me, I sell abuse......"
By A Customer
One of the many juicy nuggets of cynicism and biting wit from the glorious mind of Ambrose Bierce. Morris captures not only the man, but more importantly, the writer and the critic. Merciless and outrageous, the Bierce presented here should stand as a shining example of what writers should be but are not in our sentimental, oversensitive culture: brutally honest and always upholding the highest standards, both literary and personal. Bierce was an unapologetic misanthrope, but one cannot help but be charmed by his acidic commentary on the world he saw. Because Bierce spared no one, he avoids the labels of racist or sexist, even though many contemporary readers would like nothing more than to place Bierce in a convenient, unfair box. Bierce saw through artiface and sham, and he always believed, largely due to his horrific experiences in the Civil War (especially Shiloh) that mankind was eternally doomed to elevate the ridiculous at the expense of reason and intellect. This is a fantastic book well-written, with an eye for accuracy and detail. Even better, the author provides plenty of Bierce's own words; words that cut and wound, never apologizing for having done so.
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