Pure
From the Booker shortlisted author of The Land in Winter
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3.9 • 128 Ratings
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
⭐ Out now: The Land in Winter, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025 ⭐
Pure: an enthralling tale of an extraordinary year in pre-revolutionary Paris
Winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award
'Irresistibly compelling' Sunday Telegraph
'Dazzling' Guardian
'A work of beauty' The Times
Deep in the heart of Paris, its oldest cemetery is, by 1785, overflowing, tainting the very breath of those who live nearby.
Into their midst comes Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young, provincial engineer charged by the king with demolishing it.
At first Baratte sees this 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 his own.
Praise for Andrew Miller
'Andrew Miller's writing is a source of wonder and delight' Hilary Mantel
'One of our most skilful chroniclers of the human heart and mind' Sunday Times
'One of the best writers at work today' Telegraph
'A wonderful storyteller' Spectator
'One of those rare novelists who can rock up in any time and place and convincingly inhabit that particular historical moment' The Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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 H lo se, 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.
Customer Reviews
Brilliant descriptions of 18th Century Paris.....
... and a wonderfully grubby tale of death, decay and desolation. Something missing in the third quarter for me though, probably because my expectations were so high. I just felt it could have amounted to something a bit more substantial.
How to bring death to life
It takes some talent to bring a subject so potentially morbid as this one to such vigorous and numinous life. What a wonderful story of love, light, dark and the death that awaits us all. I really wanted this book never to end, like wanting life never to end. My favourite novels are those that teach how to live better and love better and this one did that and more. thank you!
Not a feel good book!
Miller is obviously a talented and clever descriptive writer, but I found the subject matter unrelentingly grim, which made it very difficult to enjoy reading this. Apart from his relationship with Heloise, it seemed that there was very little in the way of interesting friendships, nor could one warm to any of the characters. I would not have finished this but for the fact it was a book club choice, and so I wanted to complete it.
I was left wondering why would the author choose to write such a depressing story, without much in the way of any uplifting element.