Marc lives in Saint Nazaire; every weekend, he and his family go to Noirmoutier Island. The routine brings a simple, quiet joy to his life. Yet a danger is looming over his affluent existence: Paul Delacroix, his new colleague, whose family also has a beach house on the island.

The two men soon become friends. Between playing tennis and dinner parties, they get to know each other and become close.

With Paul, Marc opens up and shows his true self… despite being someone who has also clung to his role as a traditional man, husband and father. So when Paul breaks off their friendship one day, Marc doesn’t understand the feelings that overwhelm him. What happened? What did he do to deserve Paul’s rejection? And why is he so upset by it?

Noirmoutier Island, which has always been his refuge, has suddenly been stripped of its magic, as though it were sullied by the presence that’s haunting him. Marc is distraught. Alone with his shame and anger, with a spouse who’s hawking him like a stranger and two children who are stunned by a father they hardly recognize, he will have to learn to tame his vulnerability, the inner complexity he didn’t even know he was equipped with.

At the heart of a mesmerizing huis-clos that takes root on fascinating, threatening Noirmoutier Island, Stéphanie Chaillou skillfully creates narrative tension. The nerve-rackingly strange climate grabs us and won’t let go, while her main character is gets inexorably swallowed up. She gives us a tale of ascendancy, misplaced attachment and fragility; the story of a complex friendship in which what goes unspoken implicitly reveals the power dynamics and gaps between social classes.