by Émile Zola
Part of Les Rougon-Macquart, book 7
First published 1877
Gervaise opens her own laundry in the crowded streets of working-class Paris, scrubbing and pressing her way toward respectability. Her small business thrives for a while, bringing in steady money and the promise of a better life. She works long hours over steaming tubs, building something of her own in a neighborhood where most people own nothing. But her husband discovers the local drinking establishment, the Assommoir, and begins spending her hard-earned profits on alcohol. What starts as occasional visits becomes a daily habit, then an obsession. The money Gervaise makes each day disappears each night. Her business begins to falter as bills go unpaid and equipment breaks down. The couple slides from modest success into grinding poverty, then deeper into squalor. Gervaise watches her dreams dissolve as surely as soap in water, powerless to stop her husband's descent or save the life she built with her own hands.
Genres: addiction, 20th-century, 19th-century, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: downfall, rags-to-riches
Setting: Paris
Period: 19th-century
480 pages · Paperback · Penguin Books Ltd
Content warnings: alcohol-abuse, domestic-violence