Violette Nozi&232re A Story of Murder in 1930s Paris [Hardcover]

On an August evening in 1933, in a quiet, working-class neighborhood in Paris, eighteen-year-old Violette Nozi?re 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. Almost immediately Violettes act of double parricide became the most sensational private crime of the French interwar eradiscussed and debated so passionately that it was compared to the Dreyfus Affair. Why would the beloved only child of respectable parents do such a thing? To understand the motives behind this crime and the reasons for its extraordinary impact, Sarah Maza delves into the abundant case records, re-creating the daily existence of Parisians whose lives were touched by the affair. This compulsively readable book brilliantly evokes the texture of life in 1930s Paris. It also makes an important argument about French society and culture while proposing new understandings of crime and social class in the years before World War II.

Sarah Mazais Jane Long Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of History at Northwestern University. She is the author of many books including award winnersPrivate Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes C?l?bres of Prerevolutionary France(UC Press) andThe Myth of the French Bourgeoisie: An Essay on the Social Imaginary, 1750-1850.

Sarah Maza has written a vivid, gripping and clear-eyed account of the celebrated Violette Nozi?re case, which captivated French society in the 1930s. A bold and imaginative story, Violette Nozi?re opens an unexpected and revealing window onto interwar Parisian life.  Colin Jones, author ofParis: Biography of a City

Sarah Maza's absorbing new book on Violette Nozi?re--flapper, fantasist, and perpetrator of one of the most sordid and sensational French homicides of the 1930sis a scholarly 'true crime' tale of the most intelligent sorlcà