Guadeloupe in the fifties, it takes its place by refraining from speaking Creole despises more black and less educated than themselves. Conventions take precedence over the feelings we do not give in to tears in front of the corpse of a loved one cache, infamy, a divorce in the famille. Contre parents seem especially welded by lying against a mother too hard with other than itself, against a father timid, small Maryse takes the path of rebellion. The rebelliousness, openness murders, critical forged his character. Escape into an imaginary world, a thirst for knowledge, dreams of independence and the freedom to guide its destiny as a writer. But gradually the memory softens the edges, the trials of life called indulgence, longing of the soul restores some Caribbean joys of childhood. Maryse and then remembers that moment that he gave back the love of his family, this final night "curled up against his side, his smell of age and arnica in his heat," she found her mother by losing.
