''The Stain'' is a 1984 novel of sexuality and religion by
Rikki Ducornet
Rikki Ducornet (; born Erica DeGre; April 19, 1943) is an American writer, poet, and artist. Her work has been described as “linguistically explosive and socially relevant,” and praised for “deploy ngtactics familiar to the historical avan ...
, set in France's Loire Valley in the nineteenth century. It was Ducornet's first published novel; she has described it as being "about the Christian idea of sin".Sinda Gregory & Larry McCaffery "A Conversation with Rikki Ducornet" ''Review of Contemporary Fiction'', Fall 1998, vol. 18.3
Plot
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, in the rural village of La Folie in France's Loire Valley, a girl is born with a birthmark on her face shaped like a dancing
hare
Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores, and live solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are able to fend for themselves shortly after birth. The ge ...
. After both her parents die young, Charlotte is raised by her uncle, a mild-mannered gardener with a stutter, and her aunt, a strict disciplinarian who regards her niece's birthmark as the brand of
Satan
Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...
. As Charlotte grows up, she tries to make sense of the world around her under the influence of her aunt and the other characters, including a travelling conman, a local exorcist, the village tramp, and a nearby community of nuns that eventually accepts Charlotte as a
novitiate
The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...
. The world around La Folie is a mysterious place: Charlotte sees religious signs everywhere, an ancient menhir stands just outside town, wolves prowl in the woods nearby, and the village exorcist is torn between serving God and serving Beelzebub.
Development history
The village of La Folie is based on
Le Puy-Notre-Dame
Le Puy-Notre-Dame () or Le Puy is a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France.
The village is built on the hill of Puy, also spelt “Pua”.
Its inhabitants are known as ''Puechens''.
History
Protohistoric traces have bee ...
, in the
Maine-et-Loire
Maine-et-Loire () is a department in the Loire Valley in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France. It is named after the two rivers, Maine and the Loire. It borders Mayenne and Sarthe to the north, Loire-Atlantique to the west, Indre-e ...
department, where Rikki Ducornet lived with her French husband for twenty years. (Nearby villages
Louerre
Louerre () is a former commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Tuffalun.Louresse are mentioned in the novel.) The book was written in Le Puy, and Ducornet has described the book's genesis as stemming from a dream fuelled by encounters with real people in the village:
The book took three years to complete and was written "in a fever".Laura Kavchak "The Reconstitution of Eden: A Conversation with Rikki Ducornet" /ref> Many of the characters were based on real people, including the exorcist.
Chatto & Windus
Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business ...
Grove Press
Grove Press is an United States of America, American Imprint (trade name), publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it in ...