Claire, the daughter of farmers from the Cantal region, was born into a dying world. Her father has been saying so since she was a child: they stand at the very end of the line.
She understands early on that school and books will constitute her saving grace. She commits herself to them with energy and determination. She simply has to be the best. Thanks to a scholarship, she goes to the capital, Paris, studies at the Sorbonne and discovers a completely unknown world.
However, she never forgets the land she came from, and gets to know the city where she will make her life.
Lands narrates that passage and is a coming-of-age novel.