Ozersky is a critic and essayist. In this essay, he discusses some of the tensions and paradoxes that inform Ernaux's memoir.

First-time readers of Ernaux' s I Remain in Darkness are often surprised by it. It's a paradoxical book in many ways. It's ostensibly about Ernaux's mother, but Ernaux is in the forefront of nearly every page. It seems underwritten, but in fact it has an intensely focused literary power. It's essentially about thoughts and feelings, but many of its strongest passages describe vivid physical images. It is written with profound love, which is mixed with an equally profound anger and fear. And although it is about the end of a person's life, ultimately it is a testament to life and regeneration.

Ernaux had written a book about her mother prior to this one; soon after her mother's death in 1986, she began writing A Woman's Story, which...