L'assommoir - French Edition Author:Emile Zola The seventh novel in the Rougon-Macquart cycle, L'Assommoir(1877) is the story of a woman's struggle for happiness in working-class Paris. At the center of the story stands Gervaise, who starts her own laundry and for a time makes a success of it. But her husband soon squanders her earnings in the Assommoir, a local drinking ... more »spot, and gradually the pair sink into poverty and squalor.« less