When you are stuck for something to read why not turn to a Classic? 

 

L'Assommoir (1877) is the seventh novel in the Rougon-Macquart series. It's the story of a woman's search for happiness in working-class Paris.  At the centre of the tale stands Gervaise, who starts her own laundry and for some time, it is a success, however when her husband, Coupeau, thows her earnings down the drain in the Assommoir, the local drinking shop, gradually the pair sink into poverty and squalor.  L'Assomoir is a finely crafted Zola novel.  The book is a powerful portrayal of nineteenth-centry social conditions, and the Introduction examines its relation to politics and art as well as its explosive effect on the literary scene.

 

Reviewed by Eleanor Goff