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Synopsis
In The Stain Rikki Ducornet tells the story of a young girl named Charlotte, branded with a furry birthmark in the shape of a dancing hare, regarded as the mark of Satan. "Sadistic nuns, scatology, butchered animals, monkish rapists, and Satan" (Kirkus), as well as the village exorcist, inhabit this bawdy tale of perversion, power, possession, and the rape of innocence. Ducornet weaves an intricate design of fantasy and reality, at once surreal, hilarious, and terrifying.
"This is the most brilliant first novel I have read in years. . . . Rikki Ducornet's real talent is for language. She is a minor lord or lady of it, achieving abstruse comic effects by a kind of clowning classicism. The Stain is a very odd, accomplished and memorable novel by any standards." (Robert Nye, The Guardian)
"A highly disciplined extravaganza. . . . The writing is highly impressive." (Times Literary Supplement)
"Ducornet displays distinct page-by-page talents (vivid imagery and invention) along the lines of Angela Carter." (Kirkus 8-1-84)
"Readers with voracious appetites for the bizarre may relish the spread prepared by Ducornet." (Publishers Weekly)
"A bold, Rabelaisian mixture of bawdy and horror, this first novel . . . is highly recommended." (Library Journal)
Library Journal
"A bold, Rabelaisian mixture of bawdy and horror," said LJ's reviewer of this first novel (LJ 9/15/84). The plot centers on the youth of protagonist Charlotte, who is born with a supposed demonic birthmark that earns her harsh treatment from family and strangers alike in late-19th-century France.