The Misunderstanding

Yves Harteloup is a disappointed young man, old money fallen on hard times, who returns for the summer to the rich, comfortable Atlantic resort of Hendaye, where he spent idyllic childhood holidays. He becomes infatuated by a beautiful young woman, Denise, whose rich husband is often away on business. Yves seduces Denise and leaves her intensely, jealously in love, as he returns to the office at the end of the summer.

Yet in the mournful Paris autumn their love flounders. As Denise is driven mad with desire and suspicion, Yves seems to back off emotionally and, suffocated by her passion, he asks her to leave him alone for a while. This moment of misunderstanding is the turning point: he believes she has understood his needs, but beneath the surface she is delirious with anguish, now mixed with a sour bitterness.

With a biting satirical eye and a characteristic perception for the fault lines in human relationships, Irène Némirovsky's first novel shows sure signs of the brilliant novelist she was later to become.

IRÈNE NÉMIROVSKY was born in Kiev in 1903, the daughter of a successful Jewish banker. In 1918 her family fled the Russian Revolution for France where she became a bestselling novelist, author of David Golder, Le Bal, The Courilof Affair, All Our Worldly Goods and other works published in her lifetime or soon after, such as the posthumously published Suite Française and Fire in the Blood. She was prevented from publishing when the Germans occupied France and moved with her husband and two small daughters from Paris to the safety of the small village of Issy-l'Evêque (in German occupied territory). It was here that Irène began writing Suite Française. She died in Auschwitz in 1942.