This is a very grim book, in the vein of 'La Terre', but set amongst the Parisian working class.
The central figure is Gervaise, who has come to Paris with her partner Lantier and children from Plassans. Quickly deserted by Lantier she meets and marries a Parisian workman, whose name I forget.
They live reasonably happily and she manages to run her own washing shop (equivalent of a laundrette) and has a wonderful party there (for me this was the highlight rather than the rather silly marriage procession through the Louvre).
Her husband falls off a roof at work, takes to drink and it is downhill from there.
She has a 3rd lover Goujeta, but they never succeed in getting it together. She and her husband die in abject alcoholic poverty, survived by their daughter Nana who has other and maybe better ideas about life for a working girl.
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