"This history of oppression, at the heart of a well-intentioned Catholic family, depicts a combination of prohibitions and censures. Greatness and misery follow one another. In exchange for the slavish obedience of her two daughters, the mother promises to support them against the tyrannical father. Rather than Montreal or the suburbs, the family settle into a hotel at the cross-roads of a practically deserted village. An impenetrable forest surrounds the hotel where the usual customers resemble characters from Hugo and Gorki. In hopes of escape, the younger daughter marries while the elder, against her parents' wishes, emerses herself in studies and questions whose answers may prove disturbing."--