In her spare stark style Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion. Blurring the line between fact and fiction an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her two-year relationship with a married foreigner where every word event and person either provides a connection with her beloved or is subject to her cold indifference. With courage and exactitude she seeks the truth behind an existence lived entirely for someone else and in the pieces of its aftermath she is able to find it.