A Woman's Story

Ernaux has fashioned a compelling tribute to her mother by telling the story through her eyes as a child but now filtered through her analysis as an adult. As children we experience life, especially the relationships of our parents, as they happen without much ability to synthesize the deeper meanings. As adults, sifting through the past, we can often see what those moments really meant. A deeper understanding can be gained by trying to inhabit our mother's shoes as we age and discovering not only what kind of person she was but what kind of person we are because of her influence of in spite of it. Ernaux is first an honest writer adding no more words than are necessary to give the reader a full understanding of the events that shaped her life. She is second a writer of beautiful prose.

A Woman's Story is an account of Ernaux's mother from her beginnings on a Normandy farm, through working in a factory and running a store with her husband, to trying, as a widow, to live with her educated daughter and her family. Mother was a woman of thwarted ambition who hoped to fulfill her ambition through her daughter. Ernaux captured well the friction that arose between them both as a result of the ambition and the resulting class conflict its fulfillment brought. In contrast to Positions, Ernaux's portrayal of her father, this book spends more time on the relationships of her mother to her husband and daughter. As in most of Ernaux's work her ability to use a direct style and very specific details to reflect human nature as a whole is the prime reaason for reading the book.