A pretty villa, two cars, summers by the sea, winter skiing, a little boy, a little girl: Aurélie and Arnaud had built a life that reflected their bourgeois personalities. Yet, one summer evening, Arnaud took a gun and murdered his family before taking his own life.

Step by step, we trace their story back to its origins.

The meeting, the marriage, the birth of their children, the establishment of a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle. Then came the vague feelings, a growing unease within Aurélie, Arnaud’s jealousy, his failures, his anger, and a violence that silently took root. Nothing that disturbed the quiet life of a residential neighborhood where the main fear was burglaries. But the tension rose, invisible, inevitable.

For the first time, Adeline Dieudonné sets her story in Belgium where she grew up, observing the French-speaking Belgian bourgeoisie who live there.

How does the brutality of class relations prepare the way for further violence? Is the hand pulling the trigger that of the husband, the boss, the heir, or the descendant of a settler? What prevents the victim from exercising her freedom? What forces keep her trapped?

With the precision of an entomologist and a remarkable analytical finesse, the novel immerses us in this micro-society, where everything is transparent but nothing is seen. Trapped by this tightly woven narrative, we experience the drama from within, we suffer the grip. The novel reflects us back to ourselves. No one is safe from the worst.

A careful naturalist novel that depicts Western bourgeois societies with acuteness and cruelty, making us feel sisterhood for the main character Aurélie.