Hellé

Hellé grows up on the sun-baked outskirts of a small southern French town, raised by her eccentric uncle Sylvain, a scholar who has turned his back on worldly ambition, and her watchful Aunt Angélie, who understands the brutal arithmetic of marriage and reputation. Her uncle's unorthodox teachings open worlds to her, philosophy and nature and the life of the mind, while her aunt quietly prepares her for a different kind of survival: the art of being a woman in a society that measures women's worth in currencies other than intellect. The novel traces her passage from the enclosed garden of childhood into something larger and more dangerous. When she finally leaves for Paris at eighteen, she carries with her the conflicting gifts of her upbringing: a hungry mind and an undefended heart. Tinayre writes with subtle precision about the particular ache of growing up, the moment when the safe harbor reveals itself as simply another shore to leave.