A compelling novel about the requirement to be perfect, without losing sight of yourself - by the greatest feminist of the twentieth-century, Simone de Beauvoir.

Laurence is a woman who appears to live an ideal life.

Weekends in the country, weekdays in Paris - her life features all the trappings of 1960s French bourgeoisie. She has money, a handsome husband, two daughters and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though her mind unbidden writes copy while she's at home, and dreams of domesticity in the office.

But Laurence is a woman whose experience of life has always been overwritten by the expectation of perfection. It is only when her 10-year-old daughter, Catherine, starts to vocalise her despair about the unfairness of the world that Laurence begins to act, finally grappling with a life that prizes image over truth.

TRANSLATED BY LAUREN ELKIN