The Necrophiliac
For more than three decades, Lucien -- one of the most notorious characters in the history of the novel -- has haunted the imaginations of readers around the world. Remarkably, the astounding protagonist of Gabrielle Wittkop's lyrical 1972 novella, The Necrophiliac, has never appeared in English until now.
This new translation introduces readers to a masterpiece of French literature, striking not only for its astonishing subject matter but for the poetic beauty of the late author's subtle, intricate writing.
Like the best writings of Edgar Allan Poe or Baudelaire, Wittkop's prose goes far beyond mere gothic horror to explore the melancholy in the loneliest depths of the human condition, forcing readers to confront their own mortality with an unprecedented intimacy.
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"You shouldn't pass up this opportunity to read a loving account of a man who loves the dead as few others can or would." -- The City Book Review
"The Necrophiliac is a disturbing little book about ephemeral beauty and impossible love.... The beauty of the language coupled with the disturbing subject matter makes for a bizarre, amoral and elliptical journey of a demented individual." -- Telegraph Journal
"[S]imultaneously beautiful and grotesque ... Even now, nearly 40 years after its initial publication, it feels a bit taboo to read it. Here at last, is a boundary that few dare cross, an element of the macabre that has not been played out in a thousand similar iterations already, and it's been kept secret from me by the barrier of language." -- Rue Morgue
"The thrills here are anything but cheap, and the pleasure the reader derives is more cerebral than carnal." -- MAKE Journal
