1940s. To escape farm work, Marguerite marries the first man she meets at a village dance. Her daily life becomes a routine of domestic chores, growing heavier as her longing for elsewhere intensifies. One day, already a mother of three, Marguerite walks away from the confines of home without a word—and disappears for good.
Years later, her daughter begins to investigate. All she has are fragments of the truth. The rest, she invents—spinning stories of her mother leaving for Barcelona, or perhaps La Rochelle... There was another man, yes. But is that really the whole story? And how does one live freely after leaving everything behind?
Drawing from literary and sociological clues—from Virginia Woolf to Emil Ferris—as well as diaries and memories, the narrator delves into the condition of women in the postwar era. A complex figure of womanhood and motherhood slowly emerges, with both light and shadow. A woman whose dreams reached beyond the narrow horizon of her social class—dreams that will ultimately help her daughter find her own path.
