Therese Raquin by Emile Zola

What a wicked little book.  If Zola had been alive in the 1930s’ this would have been written as a film noir directed by Billy Wilder or Howard Hawks.  Set in 1860s, Therese is married off to her first cousin, Camille, to the glee of her aunt, Madame Raquin.  All three live together and run a shop in Paris.  The problem is Therese is very unhappy.  Her husband is a lazy twerp and her aunt a tyrant.  But one day Camille brings home a friend named Laurent.  The two quickly start a passionate affair and there’s only one way they realize they can remain together.  Murder.  This is the kind of psychological madness that one would expect in a contemporary novel but that just proves how a head of his time Zola was.  I always try to take some time to read one of the classics and this is one of those times I’m very grateful I did.  A perfect prologue to October, the month I devote to tales of the dark.  Grade: A