Thérèse Desqueyroux

wow! small and intense and wow!

For such a small work (a novella) it is a very powerful story of one woman and the 'prisons' which she inhabits. Her marriage brings her no happiness and she seeks to escape through poisoning her husband but her family works to avoid the scandal of a conviction. Instead they confine/imprison her in her home and when next encountered by her husband he is startled by her resemblance, through deprivation, to a portrait of a prisoner. This work reminds us that not all prisons are comprised of bricks and mortar. A haunting and compelling read.