In her spare and strict style, Annie Ernaux observes the desires and insults of a human heart, caught in a consumer passion. Blurring the line between fact and fiction, she tries to map the emotional and physical course of her two-year relationship with a married man, where every word, event, and person either provides a connection to her lover or is the object of her cold indifference. With courage and precision, Ernaux seeks the truth behind an existence that, for a period, lived exclusively for someone else.