Helena, a woman abandoned by her husband, is left alone to raise her young son, Amédée. The author depicts a matriarchal society where the role of women is increasingly present in everyday life. A constant, daily struggle with men. Rising unemployment, problems of adaptation in a two-tier society. Helena is atypical, not very talkative; we follow her progress through the descriptions she wants to offer about what her real life is really like. Through these, we get a glimpse of the complexities of Guadeloupean society, with the Soufrière eruption in 1976 as a backdrop; eruption that drastically changed the tranquility of an island and disrupted its mores.