An explosive first novel–Madame Bovary set in modern Germany–about a wife and mother whose failed love affairs have driven her to the edge of sanity, and to a startling attempt at vindication.After being jilted by a rich boyfriend, Margaret Sartoris, eighteen and heartbroken, throws herself into a comfortable but stifling marriage to Ernst, a war veteran with a penchant for routine and order, who still lives with his mother in a small German village.It’s not a bad life, considering Margaret’s psychological scars, but neither Ernst’s adoration nor the birth of a daughter can reawaken her frozen emotions. It’s not until she slides into an affair with a married man with whom she plans to run away that her passions are stirred, but these plans are a fantasy that cannot possibly come true. The repercussions nevertheless will explode with unimaginable force in these astonished lives.A remarkable psychological portrait, an oustanding debut novel.