Miller's 'Pure': a grave story in Paris

PURE, by Andrew Miller. Europa Editions, 331 pp., $17 paper.

Andrew Miller's new novel stinks.

What do you expect? It's full of thousands upon thousands of rotting bodies. No zombies -- just good old-fashioned corpses crammed into a Parisian cemetery for more than 500 years.

The general background of "Pure" is true: The Church of the Saints Innocents was founded in the Middle Ages and eventually became the largest cemetery in Paris. You think you have storage problems? Giant pits held more than 1,000 bodies apiece until the ground was so packed that older corpses were dug up and stored to make room for new ones. Nearby buildings collapsed. By the mid-18th century, the atmosphere grew toxic: Merchants complained that their wine quickly turned to vinegar and their meat rotted, pedestrians fainted and sickened. But the Mother Church was making a fortune from burial fees.

Into this pungent historical setting wafts Miller with a grave story set in 1785 about a man charged with emptying the cemetery and tearing down the church. It's Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth" in reverse.

We first meet Miller's fictional hero, Jean-Baptiste Baratte, in the labyrinthine mirrored halls of Versailles, where he receives an assignment that must be "handled with the necessary flair, the necessary discretion": The crown has finally ordered that the cemetery be removed. For a young engineer from Normandy, this is a chance to make his name, but powerful forces -- temporal and spiritual -- are determined to resist him.

Jean-Baptiste is an endearing fellow, serious and earnest, torn between his ambitions and his good nature. Not exactly a country bumpkin, he's still dazzled by Paris. The early scenes of him stumbling around the city -- trying to buy the right suit, trying to hold his liquor -- are delightful.

He's eager to begin dismantling the cemetery, but the author takes his time. Miller's emphasis on character and place will determine who relishes this elegant novel and who finds its pace a little too sedate. But the scenes in the crowded market, the gated churchyard or the luxurious theater offer something close to time travel. And all of Jean-Baptiste's a la mode friends are wonderfully drawn, from the doomed church's organist "playing Bach to bats," to kindly Dr. Guillotin, who's studying the decomposition of bodies (his association with the National Razor is just a few tumultuous years away).

There's also a tasty bit of domestic comedy in the house where Jean-Baptiste rents a bedroom. The maid can't resist him, and the nervous daughter doesn't -- protegez-vous! As Jean-Baptiste's men begin digging and emptying graves more than 30 yards deep, the danger increases -- from collapsing walls to poisonous gas. Even more troubling are the threats no one anticipates: shocks that redraw the plan and reorder one's mind. Graffiti in the city foretells a violent disinterment on the horizon.

Miller is still relatively unknown in the United States (he's not the Red Sox pitcher), but his work has been celebrated in Britain. "Pure" was the Costa Book of the Year, and I hope this handsome paperback edition helps increase his presence here. This smart reimagining of the groundwork just before France burst into flames is something to savor.