Audiobook · read by volunteers
Parenticide Club
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
Read by Peter Yearsley · 1 chapter · 48 min
About the book
A family sits down together, and some of its members start to die: not by accident, not by illness, but by the hands of their own relatives. In The Parenticide Club, Ambrose Bierce offers a grim little sequence of stories about murder inside the home, told through the calm and strangely innocent eyes of the family itself. The tone is deadpan, the style economical, and the humour pitch black. Bierce never raises his voice, and that restraint is exactly what gives the tales their sting. They are brief, sharp and unsettling, intended for listeners who enjoy dark satire and the gothic tradition. Peter Yearsley reads them in under an hour. Be warned that the subject is violent, though never lingered over, and the effect is as much cold laughter as shock.
Introduction
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) was an American journalist, satirist and short-story writer, remembered for his cynical outlook and his spare, controlled style. He fought in the Civil War, wrote newspaper columns that frightened his targets, and compiled a sharp dictionary of definitions known today as The Devil's Dictionary. His own end remains a mystery: he is said to have disappeared while an observer with the army of Pancho Villa in Mexico, and the date of his death is uncertain, which is why some sources give it with a question mark.
The Parenticide Club was published in 1911, and it is classed among horror and supernatural fiction. It consists of four grotesque tales about murder within the family, seen through the gently innocent perspective of the family members themselves. The contrast between mild narration and monstrous events is Bierce's favourite weapon, and it makes the stories feel more like cold fables than conventional horror.
The recording is a single track of about 0.8 hours, read by one LibriVox volunteer, Peter Yearsley.
Why listen today? For readers curious about American dark humour before the twentieth century had fully begun, Bierce is an essential voice. His brevity, his bitterness and his gift for the unexpected ending make these stories a bracing, if disturbing, experience. They are best heard with a taste for irony and a strong stomach. Listeners should know that the stories are intentionally unpleasant, and that their humour depends on a willingness to enjoy dark irony at the expense of conventional piety. For readers of the American short story, they show a very different strand from the gentle domestic sketches popular at the time, and they sit comfortably beside Bierce's better known tales of war and the supernatural.
Public domain
Ambrose Bierce died in 1914: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text