The Truth by Terry Pratchett

The Truth by Terry Pratchett

In a quiet rural village in late 19th-century France, an eleven-year-old boy is found dead in his room, sexually molested and strangled by an unknown assailant. The shocked townsfolk erupt in outrage: Who could have committed this horrible crime? Rumors immediately begin to fly and suspicions shift from one person to another as ignorant conjecture begins to feed on itself. At first a vagrant is suspected; he could have come in through the open window while passing through the town at night. But in a matter of days another story begins to circulate: the culprit must be Simon, the Jewish schoolmaster, and the murdered boy's uncle and guardian. Did he not, it is rumored, resent the fact that the boy was the product of a mixed Catholic-Jewish marriage and was raised Catholic by his now deceased mother? Despite the total lack of evidence against him, as a Jew in the midst of a predominantly Christian community, Simon is completely vulnerable to these vicious allegations. The web of mendacity that is quickly spun around him is the product of centuries of entrenched anti-Semitism and the long-standing bitter rivalry between the Catholic majority of the town and an emerging secular minority. Through political pressure by influential Catholic clergymen and the manipulation of public opinion, the Church deftly deflects the suspicions of some that the murderer is actually one of the Christian Brothers and succeeds in gaining advantage against the threat of encroaching secularism in the town. Based on his experiences with the infamous Dreyfus case, this powerful last novel by Emile Zola about the scape-goating of a Jewish schoolteacher is a chilling depiction of anti-Semitism fully embedded in European society and an eerie presentiment of the Holocaust that would sweep across the Continent only forty years later. But this is not the whole story, for Zola also brilliantly demonstrates how truth, though suppressed for a generation, slowly but inexorably comes to light through the dedication and perseverance of a few humble defenders, who remain unswerving in their demand for justice.

'Pratchett has found his owm way of turning lead into gold, and by that I don't just mean that he's written 25 bestsellers in 17 years, but that every one he has written is a treasure' -- Helen Falconer * Guardian *
'Fluent, intricately plotted and sometimes very funny' -- James Delingpole * Daily Telegraph *
'He would be amusing in any form, and his spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction' * Mail on Sunday *
'Pratchett fans are in for a treat with his 25th Discworld novel' -- Maggie Pringle * Daily Express *
'THE TRUTH is an unmitigated delight and very, very funny..The pace is compelling but he never lets his tale descend into simple farce' -- Peter Ingham * The Times *

Terry Pratchett was the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. In all, he was the author of over fifty bestselling books which have sold over 100 million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood for services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any. www.terrypratchettbooks.com

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780552147682
ISBN 10	0552147680
Title	The Truth
Author	Terry Pratchett
Series	Discworld Novels
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Transworld Publishers Ltd
Year published	2001-11-01
Number of pages	448
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.