Mercy, Mercy Brown

Just finshed reading Kathleen Tierney's Blood Oranges, the first book in a proposed trilogy by one of my go-to-authors (recognized more readily as Caitlin R. Kiernan). This is a witty parody, filled with tropes and commentary on many of the current poular fantasy novels and films featuring vampires (definitely doesn't sparkle) and werewolves in a contemporary urban setting. While I enjoyed/cringed/gulped the adventure, I was particularly taken by the many references to Rhode Island's historical famous "vampire," Mercy Brown.

I spend a little time with Mercy and legend tripping behaviour in What Happens Next? Contemporary Legends and Popular Culture (page 48). Two of Kiernan's earlier works are annotated: the novel The Red Tree (2009) and the short story "As Red as Red" published in Haunted Legends (2010).

Kiernan, writing as Tierney, has her narrator Quinn say this about the gravesite:

The tombstone's nothing fancy, a slab of marble with dates of birth and death, just the usual. Visitors had left a random assortment of tokens lined up along the top of the storn: pennies, small stones, a pewter pin from the Newport Folk Festival. In front of the stone there was no grass at all, just a dirt patch worn smooth by long years of the feet of those who came to see. The letters engraved in the marble had become ever more indistinct as a hundred and sixteen years of rain had eaten at the stone. Another hundred, it'll likely only be an anonymous slab. But maybe I'll still be around, and I'll remember.

The stone was securely bolted down with iron bands and concrete to ensure some damned frat boy, goth kid, or eBay huckster wouldn't try to make off with it (241).

Meeting with the Devil at the Crossroads Updates

Since I can no longer edit the manuscript regarding mentions of the legendary alleged meeting at the crossroads with the devil motif in popular culture, I will be posting the ones I find here.

In Kevin Hearne's Hammered (the Iron Druid Chronicles, Del Rey, 2011), Jesus has come for a visit and when walking to the nearby coffee shop he and our series hero, Atticus O'Sullivan, spot a busker.

(excerpt)
We passed an extraordinarily sunburned man in wrap-around sunglasses busking with his guitar. He was strumming 'They're Red Hot" -- an old blues tune about hot tamales -- and singing the infectious lyrics in a gravely voice. His open guitar case rested on a planter beside him, and Jesus wagged his head back and forth a little bit and got his shoulders into it too. "What a delightful riff," he said. "Do you know who wrote this song?"

"I believe it's by Robert Johnson, a Mississippi Delta blues man."

"Truly?" The Christian god stopped dancing and looked at me. "The same one who went down to the crossroads?"

"The very same."

He laughed and continued walking north, shaking his head. "My adversary is thumbing is nose at me, I think. It is enjoyable, though, to be surprised like that...." (111)