Darconville’s Cat
First edition
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| Author | Alexander Theroux |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Alexander Theroux, first edition |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday, later Henry Holt and Company (1996) |
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Publication date
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1981 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 704 |
| ISBN | |
Darconville's Cat is the second novel by Alexander Theroux, first published in 1981. The main story is a love affair between Alaric Darconville, an English professor at a Virginia women's college, and one of his students, Isabel, but includes long sections on other topics, including a general satire of the world of American academics.
The story is said to be based on Theroux's years of teaching at Longwood University, and places described in the book are easily recognized buildings on the campus.
The image on the first edition is a self-portrait drawn by the author.
Twenty-nine year old Alaric Darconville takes a position as an English instructor at Quinsy College, a women's college at Quinsyburg, Virginia. Born in New England he is the descendant of notable nobility with a French and Italian pedigree, among them a Pierre Christophe Cardinal Theroux-d’Arconville (a chapter is devoted to him) and Marie Genevieve Charlotte Theroux-d’Arconville (p. 234). His parents died when he was 14. He joins first the Franciscan, then the Trappist brotherhood, but does not fit in. Instead, he discovers a passion for words and writing and is further encouraged in his aspiration to become a writer by his grandmother when he moves to her in Venice. Upon her death she leaves him a cat, Spellvexit, some money, and her old palazzo that eventually, after protracted legal proceedings, he will own. He now has returned to the States to earn a living. Quinsyburg is a small town in the backwater of the South –“nothing surrounded by nowhere” (p. 13).
In his class he encounters a beautiful 18-year old freshman, Isabel Rawthorne, and falls in love with her. With a “low degree” family background she hails from Fawx’s Mt., Virginia. The romance blossoms, but there are consequences. Isabel fails in her freshman year and has to leave Quinsy taking a position as a telephone operator in Charlottesville. The romance has also interfered with the writing of his book, Rumpopulorum, “a grimoire, in the old style” (p. 5) dealing with angels and similar metaphysical entities and their relation to man. He ventures to London for research where he invites her for a visit and their engagement takes place. Back in Virginia, she reenters Quinsy and he continues his teaching job. After he has published his book, he gets an offer to teach at Harvard, while Isabel has finished her studies. He wants to accept and move, but she is reluctant and afraid that he might leave her eventually. He offers to marry her. But when he moves to Harvard, she stays behind, postpones the marriage date, and is harder and harder to reach. Eventually Darconville travels to Fawx’s Mt. to confront her. At this point, Spellvexit runs away. Darconville learns that she does not care for him anymore. She has found a new lover, a son of the well-to-do van der Slang family of Dutch background she had known since childhood. He is desperate. Back at Harvard, he falls under the spell of Dr. Crucifer, a satanic sophist and misogynist who abrogated his sex as not to fall under the spell of a woman. Crucifer works on Darconville turning his love for Isabel into hate. He urges him to seek revenge convincing him that Isabel is not only worthless but needs to die. Darconville sets out to kill her at Fawx’s Mt.
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