Violette Nozi%C3%A8re: A Story of Murder in 1930s Paris

An academic history with a pulpy noir heart, Maza's account of Violette Nozi%C3%A8re, who at age 19 poisoned her parents and whose case captured Paris's imagination, is also the story of a socially unsettled interwar France. Maza, a professor of history at Northwestern (The Myth of the French Bourgeoisie: An Essay on the Social Imaginary, 1750%E2%80%931850), uses the Nozi%C3%A8re affair to examine social mobility; working-class Paris neighborhoods like the Nozi%C3%A8res'; department-store fashion that allowed an upwardly aspiring girl like Violette to dress fashionably; crime journalism; surrealism (Andr%C3%A9 Breton sympathized with Violette during her trial). Yet the story of the depressed, angry Violette%E2%80%94whose father likely molested her, and whose "drama-prone, overbearing" mother survived the poisoning to become her daughter's most vocal opponent%E2%80%94keeps the book beating in time. Reminiscent of the O.J. Simpson trial, the Nozi%C3%A8re affair reflected the anxieties of its society: the horror of parricide paired with later accusations of incest presented a "troubling ambiguity" that the public struggled to disentangle. Fluently written and thoroughly researched, Maza contains "a whole constellation of contemporary experience" in the wrenching story of the Nozi%C3%A8res. Photos. (June)