Structure

This book is divided into 17 short chapters, each of which begins with a timestamp, giving it the basic structure of a journal. The chapters are arranged chronologically, beginning with the night of Hélène’s death and ending after her funeral, 12 days later. Each chapter focuses narrowly on a specific event or collection of events in Leiris’s to convey a particular emotion, memory, or theme. The two exceptions to this theme are Chapter 7, which is a letter written by Leiris to his wife’s killers, and Chapter 15, which is dominated by a letter written in Melvil’s voice to his deceased mother.

Perspective

Leiris’s perspective is that of a husband whose wife was killed during a terrorist attack, leaving him to care for their young son. He presents almost no factual details about the attack, instead focusing on his own grief and experiences in...