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by Posy Simmonds
It a coincidence that Gemma Bovery has a name rather like Flaubert's notorious heroine? Is it by chance that, like Madame Bovary, Gemma is bored, adulterous, and a bad credit risk? Is she inevitably doomed?
Gemma is the pretty second wife of Charlie Bovery, the reluctant stepmother of his children, and the bête noire of his ex-wife. A sudden windfall and Gemma's distaste for London take them across the Channel to Normandy, where the charms of French country living soon wear off.
Gemma's neighbor, the intellectual baker Joubert, is consumed by fascination for her. Denying voyeurism but nonetheless noting every change in the fit of Gemma's jeans, every addition to her wardrobe, all of her love bites and lovers, Joubert——with the help of the heroine's diaries——follows her path toward ruin.
Adultery and its consequences. Disappointment and deception. Fat and slim. Then and now. Familiar ingredients of the novel are given new life in Gemma Bovery's unique graphic form.
"A hit in England, Gemma should hold equal charms for American readers." —Publishers Weekly
"Gemma Bovery is an original masterpiece. Posy Simmonds's brilliant drawings and perfect ear for speech make every page pure pleasure." ––The Sunday Telegraph
"Posy Simmonds has found witty contemporary equivalents for Flaubert's characters, plot, irony, and even literary devices, and much of the fun of reading about Gemma is decoding the parallels ... Simmonds makes her cartoon characters three-dimensional and creates a Flaubertian ironic compassion for their suffering and stumbling." ––The Observer
This information about Gemma Bovery was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Posy Simmonds is the author of several books for adults and children, including Lulu and the Flying Babies and Fred. Her weekly cartoon strip ran in The Guardian from 1977 to 1987. She lives in England.
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