{"product_id":"madame-bovary-of-the-suburbs-9780857054708","title":"Madame Bovary of the Suburbs","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe story of a woman's life, from childhood to death, somewhere in provincial France, from the 1950s to just shy of 2025. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eShe has doting parents, does well at school, finds a loving husband after one abortive attempt at passion, buys a big house with a moonlit terrace, makes decent money, has children, changes jobs, retires, grows old and dies. All in the comfort that the middle-classes have grown accustomed to. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut she's bored. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eShe takes up all sorts of outlets to try to make something happen in her life: adultery, charity work, esotericism, manic house-cleaning, motherhood and various hobbies - each one abandoned faster than the last. But no matter what she does, her life remains unfocussed and unfulfilled. Nothing truly satisfies her, because deep down - just like the town where she lives - the landscape is non-descript, flat, horizontal. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSophie Divry dramatises the philosophical conflict between freedom and comfort that marks women's lives in a materialistic world. Our heroine is an endearing, contemporary Emma Bovary, and Divry's prose will remind readers of the best of Houellebecq, the cold, implacable historian who paints a precise portrait of an era and those who inhabit it and in doing so renders existence indelibly absurd. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eTranslated from the French by Alison Anderson\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Quercus Publishing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/06\/2022\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780857054708\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 288\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.45lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 7.70h x 5.10w x 0.80d","brand":"Sophie Divry","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42599656161461,"sku":"9780857054708","price":13.59,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_1f27a0fd-92d3-45ba-9294-fbd945fc15d9.jpg?v=1673999548","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/madame-bovary-of-the-suburbs-9780857054708","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}