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Gervaise Macquart, a young laundress with two small sons, is abandoned in a Paris slum by her lover Lantier. She marries Coupeau, a kind, sober roofer, and…
Gervaise Macquart, a young laundress with two small sons, is abandoned in a Paris slum by her lover Lantier. She marries Coupeau, a kind, sober roofer, and through hard work and thrift saves enough to open a laundry of her own, which prospers. Then Coupeau falls from a roof, and during his long recovery he takes to drink at the local bar, the Assommoir; idleness, debt and alcohol slowly drag the family down, and when Lantier returns, everything Gervaise has built begins to fall apart.
Context and significance
Émile Zola (1840–1902) published the novel in 1877 as part of his Rougon-Macquart cycle, and its frank picture of working-class life and drink, written in the slang of the Paris streets, caused a scandal and made him rich. Gervaise's daughter is the heroine of Nana, and her son Étienne the hero of Germinal. Readers who enjoy it often go on to Thérèse Raquin.
About the author
Émile Zola (1840–1902) grew up in Aix-en-Provence, where his best friend was the future painter Cézanne, and worked as a clerk for a Paris publisher before becoming a journalist and novelist. He planned and wrote a cycle of twenty novels following one family under the Second Empire, including Germinal and Nana.
In 1898 his open letter 'J'accuse...!' defended the wrongly convicted Captain Dreyfus and forced him into exile in England. He died in 1902, poisoned by fumes from a blocked chimney, and his remains were later moved to the Panthéon. Thérèse Raquin was his first success.