Le Moulin de la Sourdine

Le Moulin de la Sourdine (1936), translated as The Secret Stream, is a novel by French writer Marcel Aymé.

Plot

In a small provincial French town (based on Dole, where the author grew up), a notary in the grip of his sexual fantasies savagely murders his young maid. A schoolboy happens to witness the crime during an escapade atop a church bell tower, but after the maid's body is discovered, suspicions quickly fall upon a vagrant with a physical deformity.^[1]^[2]

Publication

Written between the fall of 1935 and the spring of 1936, Le Moulin de la Sourdine first appeared as a serial in Marianne from 29 April to 5 August 1936 before being published by Gallimard.^[1] The book was translated into English by Norman Denny for the Bodley Head in 1953 and Harper in 1954.^[3]

Reception

Kirkus Reviews wrote that the book "lacks the satiric invention of [Aymé's] later books, but there's cutting edge to this portfolio of life in a small town in the French provinces and the covert conduct of its leading citizens".^[4]

References

^ ^a ^b "Marcel Aymé Le Moulin de la Sourdine". www.marcelayme.net. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
^ Aymé, Marcel (1953). The Secret Stream. Translated by Denny, Norman. New York: Harper.
^ Keene, Frances (7 February 1954). "A Hankering For Violence; The Secret Stream. By Marcel Ayme. Translated from the French by Norman Denny. 224 pp. New York: Harper & Bros. $2.75". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
^ "The Secret Stream by Marcel Aymé". Kirkus Reviews. 1 February 1953. Retrieved 19 January 2023.