Bad Faith

"Bad Faith" tells the story of one of history's most despicable villains and conmen - Louis Darquier, Nazi collaborator and 'Commissioner for Jewish Affairs', who dissembled his way to power in the Vichy government's and was responsible for sending thousands of children to the gas chambers. After the war, he left France, never to be brought to justice. Early on in his career, Louis married the alcoholic Myrtle Jones from Tasmania, equally practised in the arts of fantasy and deception, and together they had a child, Anne whom they abandoned in England. Her tragic story is woven through the narrative. In Carmen Callil's masterful, elegaic and sometimes darkly comic account, Darquier's rise during the years leading up to the Second World War mirrors the rise of French anti-Semitism. Epic, haunting, the product of extraordinary research, this is a study in powerlessness, hatred and the role of remembrance.

ISBN 0099498286   Pages 544 ISBN13 9780099498285 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 496 Publisher Vintage   Published in London Imprint Vintage   Height (mm) 200 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 132 Publication date 05 Apr 2007   Spine width (mm) 35 DEWEY 944.0816   Academic level General, Professional / Scholarly, Tertiary education DEWEY edition DC22

"Astonishing, riveting, and elegantly written. . . . A brilliant performance in sweeping history, scrupulous biography, and tender psychology." --"The Boston Globe" "Darquier [was] one of the monsters of French history. . . . [Callil's] account of France's descent into the anti-Semitic maelstrom is dramatic." --"The New York Times Book Review" "Callil has written a fascinating book about this monster. . . . "Bad Faith "is an often moving book, as well as an improbably funny one--a study of awfulness made unexpectedly poignant by the author's own stake in the subject." --"Harper's" "Much more than the story of one family's dark secrets. This book becomes a quietly devastating history of Vichy France's anti-Semitic machinations." --"The New York Times"

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