LAssomir tells the story of Gervaise Macquart In Paris working as a laundress she is abandoned with her young sons by her lover Lantir She marries a roofing engineer named Coupeau saves enough money to open her own laundry and bears a daughter named Nana But a fall from a roof badly injures Coupeau and he takes to drink during his recovery Lantier returns Gervais suffers reverses including losing her shop and joins Coupeau in a downward spiral of drink It traces two branches of a single family Said Zola quotI want to portray at the outset of a century of liberty and truth a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new worldquotZolas shocking descriptions of conditions in workingclass 19thcentury Paris drew widespread admiration for his realismHalf of Zolas novels were a set of twenty called Les RougonMacquart set in Frances Second Empire
