Dreyfus Domesticated

Set in France during the late 1890s, the framework for Kate Taylor’s new novel is the Dreyfus Affair, that longstanding symbol of government cover-up and anti-Semitism. Most readers will already be familiar with the case, but in brief, Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jew, family man and, by numerous accounts, somewhat nondescript artillery officer, was wrongly convicted of treason in a hurried court martial, publicly humiliated on the Champ de Mars in front of a crowd yelling “Jew!” and “Judas!” before being shipped sentence on Devil’s Island. Dreyfus spent five years in that hellhole before being released in 1899 and fully exonerated in 1906. The case against him was a Kafkaesque tale of forgery, lies, innuendo and government cover-up. The military, who knew early on they had made a mistake, refused to admit it. Dreyfus’s brother, Mathieu, never stopped fighting to prove Alfred’s innocence, and in the end another officer, Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, was revealed as the...