In this haunting debut novel, historian Cécile Desprairies confronts her own family's hidden past to explore the enduring legacy of collaboration and denial in postwar France. Set in a grand Paris apartment, the narrative follows a young girl who silently observes her mother's gatherings—sessions filled with beauty secrets, gossip, and veiled references to World War II. Years later, now a prominent historian, she seeks to unmask the enigmatic figures of her past, questioning why her relatives zealously collaborated with Nazi occupiers and remained devoted to that lost cause for decades.

At the center is Lucie, a fervent Nazi sympathizer and Vichy propagandist, whose life intertwines with themes of love, ideology, and the complexities of memory. Through a blend of personal narrative and historical inquiry, Desprairies offers a chilling exploration of how ordinary individuals become complicit in extraordinary atrocities.