Thursday, November 10th
6:30 PM
Black Rock Branch
Madame Bovary’s Daughter by Linda Howard
Join Black Rock’s own, Linda Howard for a discussion of her new and widely acclaimed novel - Madame Bovary’s Daughter.
Whatever happened to the only daughter of the scandalous Madame Bovary, literature’s greatest adulteress and worst mother? Picking up after the shattering end of Gustave Flaubert’s classic novel, this beguiling novel answers the question: how does a daughter survive the legacy of a mother’s sinful past?
One year after her mother’s suicide and just one day after her father’s broken hearted demise, twelve-year-old Berthe Bovary is sent to live on her grandmother’s impoverished farm. Amid the beauty of the French countryside, Berthe becomes a model for famed painter Jean-Francois Millet, but fate has more in store for her. Her 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 19th century Paris.
There, as an apprentice to renown 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 insatiable 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 excursion through the rags and riches of French Fashion and a sweeping novel of poverty and wealth, passion and revenge.
“A lavishly textured sequel to a timeless literary masterpiece.”
—Margaret Flanagan Booklist
“Engrossing, vivid, beautifully written, adventurous, and often heart-rending…I just loved this novel!”
—Stephanie Cowell, author of Claude and Camille: A novel of Monet and Marrying Mozart
“Grand in scope–a classic tale of rags to riches, tragedy to triumph and passion to vengeance. Saga fans…will rejoice!”
—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick! ****1/2)
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