Gemma Bovery

Gemma Bovery () is a graphic novel written by Posy Simmonds. Originally published as a serial in The Guardian, it was published in book form in 1999. It is the tragicomic story of the life and death of an English expatriate in Normandy, drawing many parallels to Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

The story opens with Raymond Joubert, a baker in the (fictional) Bailleville, near Rouen in Normandy, reflecting on the recent death of Gemma Bovery, an English woman who lived in the village. Joubert blames himself for her death. During a visit to Gemma's widower Charlie, Joubert discovers that Gemma kept a journal, which Charlie has not had the heart to read. Anxious about what the journal may reveal, Joubert steals several of the most recent volumes.

Using the journal and personal recollection, Joubert tells the story of Gemma's final few months:

Magazine illustrator Gemma Tate has just been dumped by her supercilious lover Patrick Large and is taken in by kindly but impoverished furniture restorer Charlie Bovery, whom she soon marries. Depressed by London life and infuriated by the demands made by Charlie's shrewish ex-wife Judi, Gemma persuades Charlie to sell up and move to Bailleville in Normandy.

Gemma's initial delight at her simple new life soon gives way to ennui: their crumbling cottage is smelly and uncomfortable, and Charlie (who settles in Normandy far better) maddens her with his laid-back attitude to everything. Despite doing some piece work for rich, boorish neighbours Mark and Wizzy Rankin, the Boverys are soon considerably in debt.

The sensual Gemma has made a considerable impact in Bailleville: The pompous baker Joubert is soon obsessed with her and while following her one night discovers she is having an affair with Hervé de Bressigny, the son of a local landed family. Enraged with jealousy and disturbed by the uncanny parallels between Gemma's life and that of the heroine of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Joubert anonymously sends Gemma some photocopied extracts from the book as a warning that she may suffer the same fate as Emma Bovary.

...
Wikipedia