The Kill

Description

It was the time when the rush for spoils filled a corner of the forest with the yelping of hounds, the cracking of whips, the flaring of torches. The appetites let loose were satisfied at last, shamelessly, amid the sound of crumbling neighbourhoods and fortunes made in six months. The city had become an orgy of gold and women.

Emile Zola was born in 1840 and worked as a journalist before turning to fiction. He wrote his first major novel, Therese Raquin, in 1867, and the publication of L'Assommoir ten years later made him the most famous writer in France. His work has influenced authors from August Strindberg to Theodore Dreiser to Tom Wolfe. He died in 1902.

"Goldhammer's translation of Zola's satiric, transgressive tale--about, among other things, Paris, modernity, incest, and the order of the new--is a work of pure delight. And his introduction to the novel is simply brilliant." --Jean Strouse, author of Morgan: An American Financier "Zola's ferocious, brutally direct novel of modern desire is made fully present in Arthur Goldhammer's new translation. It is Paris then, it is our city now. " -Jay Cantor, author of Great Neck and Krazy Kat "Elegantly translated, with his customary urbane sparkle and precision, by Arthur Goldhammer, this new edition of The Kill is a pleasure to be savored." -Ella Taylor, film critic, LA Weekly