Description
Book SynopsisOn an August evening in 1933, in a quiet, working-class neighborhood in Paris, eighteen-year-old Violette Noziere gave her mother and father glasses of barbiturate-laced 'medication', which she told them had been prescribed by the family doctor; one of her parents died, the other barely survived.
Trade Review"Maza explains brilliantly how and why Violette's story-or a culturally acceptable version of her story-grew from being a mere fait divers, or miscellaneous news item, into a nationally staged drama that bound France in schadenfreude-laced fascination near the end of the turbulent and divisive Third Republic. Combining a neatly suspenseful account of Violette's crime and its consequences with a richly layered cultural history ... she skillfully analyzes Violette's transformation from wretched schoolgirl to cultural icon." -- Judith Warner New York Times Book Review "Grittily cinematic." -- Megan O'Grady Vogue "An academic history with a pulpy noir heart." Publishers Weekly "The story itself is so fascinating that general readers interested in crime and mystery will be enthralled." -- Marie Marmo Mullaney Library Journal "Excellent... Maza gorgeously weaves together social history, crime culture, gender theory, and thorough research." -- Oline Eaton New Books In Biography "[An] excellent new biography... Maza gorgeously weaves together social history, crime culture, gender theory, and thorough research." -- Oline Eaton New Books In Biography "A true-life detective tale set not amid the glamour and romance of a well-touristed Paris but in a secret city that runs thick with the lives of the forgotten and the abandoned." -- David Kennedy Jones T: The New York Times Style Magazine "Compelling... A brief review cannot convey the elegance and persuasiveness of Maza's version of this famous case." -- Robert A. Nye, Oregon State University Journal Of Modern History A well-researched and thoroughly readable account of French culture as revealed in a generally forgotten murder case." -- Jaime O'Neill Chico News & Review "The trial captivated France, and readers will be just as captivated by Maza's study of Noziere and the culture of interwar France." -- Eric Feil Dan's Hamptons
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. A Neighborhood in Paris 2. Interwar Girlhoods 3. Violette's Family Romance 4. A Crime in Late Summer 5. The Accusation 6. Letters to the Judge 7. A Culture of Crime 8. A Water Lily on a Heap of Coal 9. The Trial 10. Afterlives Conclusion Notes Index
