The Haunts of Men
(Frederick A. Stokes, 1898)
Robert Chambers always approaches his fiction from the high ground of art. Although his prose is sometimes a bit pedantic and over-seasoned, he seldom fails to hit the mark. But when one considers his colossal output, the mind reels, the senses stagger. How are we to give his work any fair analysis? To do a decent study of Chambers would require a sacrifice of a large portion of our spare time for the next year or so. As we're not now up to such a challenge, we shall try something a bit less exacting, and review a few of his short story collections. This, at least, will make the job more manageable, and perhaps serve as preparatory to a longer study.
The present book is a collection of eleven stories, more or less varying in length. All of them are very well-written, and seem to be held together (albeit loosely) by a common theme. For all of these tales involve the haunts of men: their tragedies, comedies, misfortunes, and so forth. It was once said of Chambers that he attained perfection at just about every genre to which he turned his pen. The following collection ought to serve as a demonstration of this truth.
The first four stories involve the Civil War. "The God of Battles" is the tale of a lonely girl living in an isolated farmhouse somewhere near a Maryland battleground. A young Union cavalry officer is billeted in her home, but lacks the courage to tell her that her brother has been killed. "Pickets" is a tale of two soldiers, one union and one confederate, who find friendship after swapping the necessities of life-- tobacco for biscuits. "An International Affair" is a comedy about an Irish battalion that tries wreaking vengeance on a group of German allies by killing their cat and dishing it out for Christmas dinner. "Smith's Battery" is quite a good one, involving the Union takeover of a Southern village. A corrupt country preacher alerts the Confederates, tries to play hanky with another man's wife, but is cut short by a nasty death.
Next tale is "Ambassador Extraordinary." It centers around the Parisian adventures of Messieurs Clifford and Elliot, two American ex-patriots living in the Latin Quarter section. Of all the tales in this volume, it alone retains the floridity of its age. Its protagonist tries to woo the daughter of a tipsy ambassador at a series of elite garden parties. This is followed by "Yo Espero" -- a yarn set at a rustic hotel in North Carolina. Here Chambers mixes old-fashioned romance with bootlegging, shady ministers, and old fashioned snake-bite cures. "The Collector of the Part" comes next. The titular character is not a man, but a killer shark who inhabits the waters near a quarry in Maine. The foreman has not only the shark to deal with, but a treacherous crew of employees who plot and plan his accidental death. In the nick of time, he is rescued by a gun-wielding woman.
"The Whisper" is of quite a different caliber-- a seedy murder mystery, in which a group of men sit in a Chinatown bar, trying to solve who killed a prostitute. Though short in length, it contains a memorable surprise ending. "Little Misery" is easily the best story in the collection. It takes place somewhere near the U.S./ Canadian border, and involves a logging foreman, Hale, who tries to get revenge on an ex-employee, Skeene, for beating him in a fistfight. Skeene is forced to defend himself by shooting to death several henchman, and escapes into the wilderness with a bounty on his head. Later he comes back to grab Hale's fiancée, and the two live together in the wild, Hale vowing bloodshed all the while. The story has a brutal Kipling-esque ending, showing that Chambers is quite adept as a master of realism.
"Enter the Queen" and "Another Good Man" are two more 'Clifford and Elliot' stories. In the former, their lack of funds force them into financing a musical comedy, The Queen of Siam. But due to circumstances they are forced to play in the orchestra. "Another Good Man" takes us into the nightlife of Paris, where a ninny artist is initiated into full-grown pleasures at a masquerade party. Interesting, but Chambers himself must have been familiar with the decadent atmosphere of Parisian life during the 1890's. Anyone who wants details of those popular ill-health resorts should read Richard Harding Davis's About Paris (1895). E. Phillips Oppenheim has also given us a few shocking reminiscences in his autobiography The Pool of Memory (1940).
The eleven tales are topped off with a strange little "Envoi" which echoes the gloomy fatalism of Edward Fitzgerald in his dourest moments. Taken as a whole, The Haunts of Men is a collection of high literary value. It gives us a fair presentation of Chambers's ability to spin interesting short fiction. Despite its advantages, however, the book was not a commercial success. Like a great many story collections of the era, it has fallen to the wayside and been forgotten. The tales, except one or two, have hardly aged at all, but there is little market for them today. Perhaps "The Whisper" may bear anthologizing, due to its mild horror content.
The Haunts of Men is a bit difficult to find. But if you're a Chambers enthusiast you'd do well to find a copy. Although I admire Chambers, he is not one of my favorite authors. Under normal circumstances I would not pay over $10-15 for a copy of this book. Fortunately, I was able to locate the 1969 reprint edition offered by "Books for Libraries" as part of the "Short Story Index Reprint Series." I think this edition may still be in print, through its distributor Ayer Company Publishers. At any rate, I think this book will make a nice little stocking-stuffer for the Holiday Season. And that's about the best compliment I can give it.
--B.A.S.
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