Pure

Les Innocents Cemetery has held the corpses of Paris since the fourteenth century. It's now 1785, four years before the Revolution, and overflowing tombs and foul air have made the whole neighborhood uninhabitable. Young Jean-Baptiste Baratte, an up-and-coming engineer, has been commissioned to excavate the graves, transfer the bones (with appropriate solemnity and care) to the Catacombs and then destroy the cemetery and its attached church. Miller's story focuses on atmosphere, and Ralph Cosham's measured proficiency accentuates its pace and mood. His authoritative enunciation complements the gravity of Baratte's task. The listener feels the weight of the task and its ramifications as all must choose the between the reeking past and the fresh air of the future. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

September 24, 2012
In another exploration of historical lacunae, Miller (Ingenious Pain) delves into pre-Revolutionary Paris, where a pestilential, ancient cemetery acts as metaphor for the blighted reign of King Louis XVI. Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young Norman engineer who prides himself on his faculties of reason, is commissioned by the king's minister to close the centuries-old les Innocents cemetery, whose noxious sprawl threatens to poison adjacent neighborhoods. Jean-Baptiste moves in nearby and begins orchestrating the massive exhumation, hiring miners to dig up the thousands of bodies and cart away the bones. Among those whose lives will be changed by his commission are Jean-Baptiste's friend Armand, the organist at les Innocents' church; and Héloïse, a literate prostitute, who becomes his mistress. But as the digging commences, unexpected complications arise: risk of cave-ins, infection, rats, bats, madness, fire, and the special danger posed by his landlords' vengeful daughter, Ziguette. Despite all obstacles, Jean-Baptiste forges on with his ghoulish task, but at what cost to reason? Although the book's dramas fail to coalesce, Miller recreates pre-Revolutionary Paris with astonishing verisimilitude, and through Jean-Baptiste, illuminates the years preceding le deluge. Agent: Zoe Pagnamenta.