Pure – Andrew Miller

1785, four years before the arrival of revolution in Paris, young engineer Jean-Baptiste Baratte is commissioned with the removal of the cemetery of Les Innocents.

As his dreams of building bridges are replaced by the practicalities of bringing up the bodies and disposing of the bones, we follow Jean-Baptiste’s relationships old and new, all revolving around the graveyard and the Church of the Holy Innocents – fellow engineer Lecoeur, a friend from their time together working at the mines at Valenciennes, the Monnard family with whom he lodges, Armand the flamboyant church organist and bon viveur, Jeanne the granddaughter of the church sexton, and the elusive, exotic Heloïse.

Publisher page: Pure – Andrew Miller

Andrew Miller’s Pure and Les Innocents Cemetery – review by Clare Crowston, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign