The novel's central character is Etienne Lantier, previously seen in L'Assommoir (1877), a young migrant worker who arrives at the forbidding coalmining town of Montsou in the bleak far north of France to earn a living as a miner. Sacked from his previous job on the railways for assaulting a superior - he befriends the veteran miner Maheu, who finds him somewhere to stay and gets him a job pushing the carts down the pit. Etienne is portrayed as a hard-working idealist but also a naïve youth; Zola's genetic theories come into play as Etienne is presumed to have inherited his Macquart ancestors' traits of hotheaded impulsiveness and an addictive personality capable of exploding into rage under the influence of drink or strong passions. -- from http://www.barnesandnoble.com (Jan. 21, 2014).
Emile Zola
Emile Zola was a French novelist and journalist known for his influential work "Les Rougon-Macquart", a series of 20 novels that explored social and political issues of his time. Zola's naturalistic style and commitment to depicting reality revolutionized 19th-century literature, influencing generations of writers to come.
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