Random House Publishing Group
Featuring: Charles Frederick Worth; Jean-François Millet; Berthe
512 pages ISBN: 0385343876 EAN: 9780385343879 Paperback Add to Wish List
Based on the literary classic, Madame Bovary, MADAME
BOVARY'S DAUGHTER follows the life of Berthe Bovary, the
daughter of Gustave Flaubert's character, Emma Bovary.
Young Berthe watches in disgust and fascination as her
mother indulges in extramarital affairs and plunges her husband
into debt. Madame Bovary has an unquenchable desire for the
finer things in life. Her insatiable need for fine gowns
and jewelry slowly bankrupt the family. Without a thought
for her husband or her daughter, Emma slowly loses touch
with reality as she dreams of a life of wealth and
beautiful things. When her wealthy suitor heartlessly
abandons her, Emma takes her own life by drinking arsenic.
Berthe watches her mother die a slow agonizing death, and
her heartbroken father soon follows the wife who never
loved him to the grave.
Berthe Bovary is left an orphan and sent to live on her
grandmother's farm. Berthe imagines that she will finally
have a real home with a stable adult who will love her. But
her grandmother takes Berthe in as a servant instead of a
granddaughter. Berthe's grandmother works her to the bone
in order to earn her room and board. Berthe takes shelter
from her grandmother's vicious temper in an unexpected
friendship with artist, Jean Francois Millet. Millet
introduces Berthe to the world of beauty and art. With her
mother's fashion magazines as inspiration, Berthe begins to
wonder what it would be like to live the splendid life that
consumed her mother's imagination.
Berthe's destiny takes her from her quiet life at her
grandmother's farm into a grueling job at Rappelais Et
Fils, a cotton mill. Berthe is thrilled to work at the
mill as she imagines working with fine fabrics, however,
Berthe's first real job will expose her to the harsh
reality of life as an orphan. When the owner of the cotton
mill offers Berthe a job as a housekeeper at his house in
Paris, Berthe is torn between an honest but difficult
living and uncertain future. Berthe's new life in Paris
will bring her hope and excitement, but also despair and
cruelty. But Berthe is determined to not fall into the
vices that destroyed her mother. However, Madame Bovary's
daughter will discover that she cannot escape her mother's
fate as easily as she thought.
MADAME BOVARY'S DAUGHTER is an exceptionally written
masterpiece rich in period detail. Linda Urbach powerfully
brings to life the opulence of the rich in nineteenth-
century France. MADAME BOVARY'S DAUGHTER is full of
wonderful fashion and breathtaking descriptions of period
dresses. But the novel doesn't neglect the darker side of
the era. Berthe's job at the cotton mill reveals the
hardships and neglect that children suffered during this
period. Readers will rejoice as they follow Berthe's long
and difficult journey from a life of poverty to the life
her mother only dreamed of. This is a novel Gustave
Flaubert would heartily approve of!
Picking up after the shattering end of Gustave Flaubert’s
classic, Madame Bovary, this beguiling novel imagines an
answer to the question Whatever happened to Emma Bovary’s
orphaned daughter?
One year after her mother’s suicide and just one day after
her father’s brokenhearted demise, twelve-year-old Berthe
Bovary is sent to live on her grandmother’s impoverished
farm. Amid the beauty of the French countryside, Berthe
models for the painter Jean-François Millet, but fate has
more in store for her than a quiet life of simple pleasures.
Berthe’s determination to rise above her mother’s scandalous
past will take her from the dangerous cotton mills of Lille
to a convent in Rouen to the wealth and glamour of
nineteenth-century Paris. There, as an apprentice to famed
fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth, Berthe is ushered
into the high society of which she once only dreamed. But
even as the praise for her couture gowns steadily rises, she
still yearns for the one thing her mother never had: the
love of someone she loves in return.
Brilliantly integrating one of classic literature’s
fictional creations with real historical figures, Madame
Bovary’s Daughter is an uncommon coming-of-age tale, a
splendid excursionn through the rags and the riches of
French fashion, and a sweeping novel of poverty and wealth,
passion and revenge.
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