This is unlike Duras' Indo-China books that I've read, set as it is in rural, backwater France - but as the book develops, it's possible to discern some of the themes that come to fruition in the later books, especially the messy eroticisms of family life.

As we'd expect, this is a very introspective book that focalises via a young woman - though not the knowing girl-women of some of the later books. There's a strong emphasis on death, including suffering, and a sense of a claustrophobic family, looking inward and hiding its secrets.

The two later sections are more familiar territory with an alienated narrator coming to terms with who she is and what she could be.

This is early Duras and probably not the best place to start (that's her The Lover, in my view) - but for anyone fascinated, as I am, by this very Gallic thinker and writer, this offers an early glimpse (her second novel, I think) of Duras' unique vision.