CARBON
A fireplace. One night. A famous death. And a question nobody wants to ask.
Paris, 1902. Émile Zola is found dead in his bedroom, the victim of carbon monoxide poisoning. His wife, Alexandrine, has also been poisoned, but narrowly survives. Everything seems to point to a domestic accident.
Yet Lucien is not convinced.
A young medical student, he is familiar with Zola's work and admires the man who had been willing to risk his reputation and his freedom in the name of truth. When the authorities seem keen to move on quickly, Lucien decides to conduct his own investigation.
His investigation takes him through the streets of a Paris still marked by the Dreyfus Affair, where political divisions have not disappeared and where Zola's name continues to inspire both admiration and hatred.
But the investigation soon takes on a personal dimension.
Lucien discovers the existence of a secret family and must examine the complex relationship between Alexandrine Zola and Jeanne Rozerot. At first, this line of inquiry seems promising: could jealousy, secrets, old wounds, rivalries and family legacy conceal a motive?
Yet the confrontation between the two women turns his assumptions on their head. Behind the grudges of the past, he discovers above all genuine pain and a shared love for the deceased.
Lucien must therefore look elsewhere.
The anonymous threats. The nationalist leagues. The political climate. The mysterious workings of the fireplace. And above all, the possibility that an accident was caused intentionally.
The further his investigation progresses, the more pressing a question becomes: was Zola the victim of chance or of criminal intent?
Carbon plays with this uncertain boundary between accident and murder, between evidence and suspicion, between historical truth and a truth that cannot be established. The novel also shows how an official explanation can become a form of collective silence: a solution simple enough to satisfy everyone, but perhaps too simple to be true.
Hamon de Quillan thus presents a dark and atmospheric historical novel, in which a criminal investigation, family drama and political clashes converge around the final night of a writer who has become a symbol.
Following Zola's death, Lucien is not merely searching for a culprit. He is searching for what people have chosen to forget.
