Maleficium

Forgive these seven men, hapless victims of a strange and evilspell, who, in seeking an attentive earforthe tale of their misfortunes in the privacy of the confessional, implored God for the salvation of their very souls, defiled by curiosity and the weakness of the flesh. Forgive too this much maligned woman,forcedinto cruelsilence,forshe knows all too well what she has done. Lastly,forgive the man of God who broke the confessional sealby transcribing the words of these individuals into an impious work of evil. Dear reader, you hold in your hands a new but unexpurgated version of the mythic Maleficium written by father Savoie (1877-1913), a sacrilegious priest of which we know very little other than that he spent the last years of his life cloistered in a monastery having been mysteriously struck deaf. Know that by simply reading this deleterious work the pure of soul may suffer greatly for it excites the senses and awakes desires too shameful to mention. By giving into its charms, you risk nothing less than excommunication. You are thus forewarned. The author of Le cercle de Clara and L’évocation (Prix Ringuet de l’Académie des lettres du Québec) offers up a baroque fresco ineight parts, an invitation to travel to the very limits of pleasure and pain. A rare work of the fantastic, both exotic and erotic, borne by a prose of sumptuous beauty. Never will sin have seemed so irresistible.