Nana tells the story of the rise of the rise of the young woman Nana Coupeau from the slums of Paris to the life of a high-class escort. Considered outrageous when it was first published in 1880, its heroine is a character of questionable morals surrounded by corrupt society. One of the twenty novels in Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle, Nana plays with her companion's emotions, leading them to ruin, misfortune and even suicide.