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Pure, June 2012
Hardcover / e-Book
Europa Editions
June 2012
On Sale: May 29, 2012
336 pages ISBN: 1609450671 EAN: 9781609450670 Kindle: B007T94RIG Hardcover / e-Book
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Fiction
Jean-Baptiste Baratte, an engineer of modest origin, arrives
in the city in 1785, charged by the King’s minister with
emptying the overflowing cemetery of Les Innocents, a
ancient site whose stench is poisoning the neighborhood’s
air and water and leaving a vile taste in its inhabitants’
food. At first the ambitious Baratte sees his work as a
chance to clear the burden of history, a fitting task for a
modern man of reason. But before long he begins to suspect
that the destruction of the cemetery might be a prelude to
both his own demise and that of the monarchy. Baratte
expects the task to be unpleasant but cannot foresee the
dramas and calamities it will trigger, or the incident that
will transform his life. As unrest against the court of
Louis XVI mounts, the engineer realizes that the future he
had planned may no longer be the one he wants. His
assignment becomes a year of relentless work, exhuming of
mummified corpses and listening to the chants of priests, a
year of assault and sudden death. A year of friendship, too,
and of desire and love. A year unlike any other he has lived.
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