The Young Man from Savoy

The Young Man from Savoy is the story of Joseph Jacquet, "a young man not like the others," whose once untroubled existence seems fated to unravel from the moment he catches a glimpse of the mesmerizing Miss Anabella. A high-wire artist with a traveling circus, Anabella becomes the object of an increasing fantasizing obsession, and a catalyst for the bizarre and brutal acts that follow. Set at the beginning of the 20th century in a remote French village overlooking Lake Geneva, this elemental story of all-consuming love plays out against a backdrop that is at once idyllic, askew, and unearthly. Vividly imagined and masterfully wrought, The Young Man from Savoy is a meditative page-turner, a novel whose spare, mutedly lyrical prose stands in sharp contrast to the dramatic downfall it recounts. In this remarkable work, acclaimed French Swiss writer C-F Ramuz has left us a great and lasting legacy, a work of laconic and unsettling power.