Publisher's Synopsis
Abandoned by her lover and left to bring up their two children alone, Gervaise Macquart has to fight to earn an honest living. When she accepts the marriage proposal of Monsieur Coupeau, it seems as though she is on the path to a decent, respectable life at last. But with her husband's drinking and the unexpected appearance of a figure from her past, Gervaise's plans begin to unravel tragically. The Drinking Den (The Dram Shop) caused a sensation when it was first published, with its gritty depiction of the poverty and squalor, slums and drinking houses of the Parisian underclass. The seventh novel in Zola's great Rougon-Macquart cycle, it was the work that made his reputation. And, in his moving portrayal of Gervaise's struggle for happiness, Zola created one of the most sympathetic heroines in nineteenth-century literature. Emile Edouard Charles Antoine Zola was a French writer, the most well-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'accuse. Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902. During his early years, Zola wrote numerous short stories and essays, four plays and three novels. Among his early books was Contes a Ninon, published in 1864. With the publication of his sordid autobiographical novel La Confession de Claude attracting police attention, Hachette fired him. After his first major novel, Therese Raquin, he started the series called Les Rougon Macquart, about a family under the Second Empire.
