A personal narrative of the period from 1941 to 2006, through the lens of memory and impressions, past and present - even projections into the future. Photos, books, songs, radio, television, decades of advertisements and headlines, contrasted with personal conflicts and notes from six decades of diaries. 

Local dialect, words of the times, slogans, brands, and names for constantly growing objects, here gain a voice. The voice that we recognize as the voice of the author constantly dissolves and reappears. Ernaux makes the passage of time tangible. Time itself, relentless, narrates its passage, exiling other narrators to anonymity. A new kind of autobiography emerges, subjective and impersonal, private and collective at the same time.