Vampire of Ropraz

(Paperback)

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1903, Ropraz, a small village in the Jura Mountains. The virginal daughter of a local judge dies of meningitis. On a howling December day a lone walker discovers her tomb recently opened, her body violated, left hand cut off, sex mutilated and heart torn out. Horror in the nearby villages, the return of atavistic superstitions, mutual suspicion in the heart of winter. Garlic and crucifixes are again brandished in this Protestant region. Then two more bodies are violated. Now a suspect must be found. Fevez, a stable boy with blood-shot eyes is arrested. He is convicted, subjected to psychiatric treatment and then vanishes in 1915. Chessex takes this true story and weaves it into a lyrical tale of fear and cruelty. This portrait of late 19th century country folk still in the thrall of vampirism sheds new light on our early 21st century urban obsessions with multiple rapists and psychopathic serial killers.

Reviews

"A superb novel, hard as a winter in these landscapes of dark forests, where an atmosphere of prejudice and violence envelops the reader" L'Express"An admirable story teller, Chessex surprises again with this terrifying portrait of a region, of an era and of a man with a strange destiny." Livres Hebdo"It's beautiful; it's pure, like a blue sky over a black forest. Giono without garlic and olives." Le Point"Far from just telling us a simple story Chessex has had the intelligence to integrate a dose of poetry, of the aesthetics of sin, and of the metaphysics of the monster." Lire

Author Bio

Jacques Chessex, born in 1934, won the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize for his novel L'Ogre. He is considered one of Switzerland's greatest authors, a novelist, poet, essayist and winner of the French Literature Grand Prix of the Academie Francaise.