Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-234) and index.
Introduction : murder and the Utopian movement -- I wear not motley in my brain : slaves, fools, and abject heroes -- O totiens servus : Horace, Juvenal, and the classical Saturnalia -- Oui, monsieur le philosophe : Diderot's Le neveu de Rameau -- Lacerations : the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky -- L'Apocalypse à crédit : Louis-Ferdinand Céline's war trilogy -- These children that come at you with knives : Charles Manson and the modern Saturnalia.