Description

Against the Grain Again: The Further Adventures of Des Esseintes by Brendan Connell

Hardcover – Tartarus Press – Sep 2021 – 212 pages

In this fine-tuned pastiche, Brendan Connell pays tribute to J.K. Huysmans and his masterpiece, À rebours, offering a novel of hyacinth-drenched decadence, double-dyed in mysticism and infernalia—a novel in which the corpse of old Paris is resurrected, supported by a host of dubious characters and adventures.

Duc Jean des Esseintes, after undergoing a complete collapse of nerves, has left his villa in Fontenay, and finds himself once again in Paris, that city of falsification and blood, where he must face, with what limited force is at his disposal, the coarseness of the world, and attempt to reform his delicate mental and physical health.

This highly enjoyable book will appeal to all admirers of fin-de-siècle decadent literature.