I am reading these in chronological order as I find the complete works pretty un-navigable on my kindle. I have read this before, but didn’t remember much of the plot.
Thérèse is pressurised by (I think) her step mother, into marrying her step brother, who is dull and uninteresting. So, unsurprisingly, she takes a lover Laurent, but, not uniquely, finds the confines of an adulterous relationship in late 19th working class Paris, impossible.
The solution is to murder her husband by drowning him on a boating trip up the Seine. The consequences are a bit Macbeth-ian, both are so tortured by guilt that their relationship falls apart despite being pressurised by friends and the step mother to marry. They eventually commit suicide more or less by mutual, if unspoken, agreement.
The 2nd half, post the murder, was hard work.
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