Camus's Abandoned Novel 'A Happy Death' Explores Murder and Happiness

Albert Camus's first novel, 'A Happy Death' (La mort heureuse), written before his 1942 masterpiece 'The Stranger' (L'Étranger), was published posthumously in 1971 after Camus died in a car accident in 1960. The novel shares a nearly identical protagonist—Patrice Meursault in 'A Happy Death' versus Mersault in 'The Stranger'—but differs in shocking ways. The plot follows Patrice Mersault, who murders and robs a double-amputee named Roland Zagreus, motivated by money and a desire for freedom. Zagreus, a former gangster, had stashed cash, a revolver, and a suicide note in a chest, making the murder appear as suicide. Patrice later marries Lucienne, treating her as a means to an end, and isolates himself in a country house to pursue a stone-like happiness devoid of reflection or care for others. He dies consciously from illness, witnessed by Lucienne and a village doctor. The novel was heavily influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly his aphorism 'Morality for doctors' from 'Twilight of the Idols' (1889), and inverts Fyodor Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' (1866) by having the murderer feel no guilt. Camus abandoned the text to focus on 'The Stranger', which presents a more nuanced absurdist philosophy where Meursault accidentally kills and still helps others despite seeing no reason to.