Germinal by Emile Zola
Germinal is a good example of the school of Naturalism, which means it’s depressing. No happy endings here. But it’s also very well written with a haunting story and engaging characters.
It’s the story of a miner’s strike in France, sometime after the French Revolution. After the revolution, the power in France moved from the nobility to the middle class but they didn’t turn out to be any more generous or fair to the poor. There’s a lot of suffering in this story. And a lot of sex too. We only think we invented premarital sex and promiscuity.
It seems that Zola was prolific, with over twenty novels to his name. I’m sure I’ll read more. Although Naturalism isn’t my favorite (isn’t the real world brutal enough?), the writing was too good to dismiss.