With extraordinary voice and poignant bravery, this novel allows the reader to experience a 20-year-old woman's reflections as she lies suffering from a back-alley abortion. Denise Lesur, alone in her college dorm room, reviews her coming-of-age in postwar France and her passages in life from a middle-class upbringing to what may be her last day--a brilliant treatment of coming to terms with one's childhood by one of France's most important and innovative contemporary writers.