The Assassination of Ambrose Bierce: A Love Story

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) is one of the most colorful and inscrutable figures in American literature. He had a long literary career in San Francisco before disappearing in a cloud of smoke in the Mexican Civil War. His life story is ripe for fictional treatment, and Don Swaim has brought all his knowledge of Bierce--and his skill as a novelist--to bear in The Assassination of Ambrose Bierce: A Love Story. The novel tells of Bierce's departure from his home in Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1913 and his venture into Mexico, where he meets a number of the leading figures in the Mexican Civil War, notably Pancho Villa. Intermixed with Bierce's lively encounters with the ill-educated and violent Villa are passages where Bierce recalls the more notable episodes of a long and rich life, notably his participation in some of the grisliest battles of the Civil War.  In the end, Bierce, after escaping death on several occasions in the Mexican Civil War, ventures up with Villa to Saratoga Springs, where he unexpectedly falls in love with a fetching woman, Elizabeth Dumont, justifying Swaim's provocative subtitle ("A Love Story"). Along the way, Bierce also has repeated encounters with "the Damned Thing"--the baleful figure of death.  This novel--by turns moving, funny, and terrifying--will be richly enjoyed by aficionados of Ambrose Bierce and with any readers who like a well-told tale that evokes the past with vividness and panache.Don Swaim is the author of Steampunk Electroblaster Romance, The H. L. Mencken Murder Case, and other works. He runs the most comprehensive website on Ambrose Bierce (donswaim.com).

From the Inside Flap

The Assassination of Ambrose Bierce is a work as complex as Bierce himself. It is a love story; it is an elegantly constructed historical novel; it is a tale of terror. But most of all, it is a tale of a human life--a tale of a man who belonged to the "damned human race," however much he may have wished he didn't. Readers of this book may come away moved, amused, or terrified--but chiefly they will come away with a profound understanding of what it means to be human.--S. T. Joshi (from his Introduction)

From the Back Cover

THE ASSASSINATION OF AMBROSE BIERCE: A LOVE STORY by Don SwaimAmbrose Bierce (1842-1914?) is one of the most colorful and inscrutable figures in American literature. He had a long literary career in San Francisco before disappearing in a cloud of smoke in the Mexican Civil War. His life story is ripe for fictional treatment, and Don Swaim has brought all of his knowledge of Bierce--and his skill as a novelist--to bear in THE ASSASSINATION OF AMBROSE BIERCE.The novel tells of Bierce's departure from his home in Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1913 and his venture into Mexico, where he meets a number of the leading figures in the Mexican Civil War, notably Pancho Villa. Intermixed with Bierce's lively encounters with the ill-educated and violent Villa are passages where Bierce recalls the more notable episodes of a long and rich life, notably his participation in some of the greatest battles of the Civil War.In the end, Bierce, after escaping death on several occasions in the Mexican Civil War, ventures up with Villa to Saratoga Springs, where he unexpectedly falls in love with a fetching woman, Elizabeth Dumont, justifying Swaim's provocative subtitle ("A Love Story"). Along the way, Bierce also has repeated encounters with "The Damned Thing"--the baleful figure of death.This novel--by turns moving, funny, and terrifying--will be richly enjoyed by aficionados of Ambrose Bierce and with any readers who like a well-told tale that evokes the past with vividness and panache.Don Swaim is the author of Steampunk Electroblaster Romance, The H.L. Mencken Murder Case, and other works. He runs the most comprehensive website on Ambrose Bierce.HISTORICAL/SUPERNATURAL: Hippocampus Press, New YorkCover Art: Jared Boggess

About the Author

Don Swaim (author) curates The Ambrose Bierce Site, the Internet's definitive Bierce: donswaim.com. A Kansan by birth, Ohioan by education, Manhattanite by inclination, and Pennsylvanian by preference, Swaim's long-running CBS Radio broadcast about books and writers, "Book Beat: The Podcast," continues on the Internet. He is the founder of the venerable Bucks County Writers Workshop.S.T. Joshi (introduction) is a leading authority on H.P. Lovecraft, as well as other writers mostly in the realms of supernatural and fantasy fiction. He is the author of The Weird Tale (1990), The Modern Weird Tale (2001), and Unutterable Horror: A History of Supernatural Fiction (2012). His award-winning biography H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996) was later expanded as I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft (2010).

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