Some people who aren't here have a stronger hold on us than the living. Alain Defossé looks at three female figures who he never knew, yet who shaped his definition of femininity, and thus the man he became. Tied in the past to his family, but now gone, Solange, Denise, then Mado appeared to him via his mother's stories. The fascinated writer tries to smell their perfume, hear their steps, embrace their ghosts. Because he can sense that discovering who they were will allow him to get closer to the fragile secret of his own origins.
Solange, a provocative fairy at his crib, used to go to all the dances with his mother. Denise is the haggard face with the dark circles under its eyes in the family photo albums, a consumptive who died at age 16. Why did no one ever talk about her? Why did he have to ask? And what about Mado, the Parisian gallery owner and friend of the author's grandmother, who everyone always said had no female friends… but lots of male lovers? The existence of Mado sheds new light on the image of the formidable matriarch, the cornerstone of the whole family.
Tracking down the shadows at the source of his imaginative powers, the novelist addresses the question of his identity.