Françoise Quoirez wrote Bonjour Tristesse at the young age of eighteen; at the time, she was only a year older than her narrator, the emotionally-turbulent Cécile. Quoirez invites readers into the complex mind of the narrator, explaining with the precision of personal proximity the tumultuous precipice on which Cécile finds herself. Cécile’s father, Raymond, is a widower reveling in his newfound bachelorhood. He is an attractive, charismatic man who woos women half his age; following her mother’s death, Cécile adapted to her father’s lifestyle, watching the ebb and flow of his much-younger mistresses with an uninterested eye. She has inherited Raymond’s pleasure-oriented motivations, a trait that her father has readily indulged. His permissiveness led her to reject what she views as “a bourgeois lifestyle.” Instead, she spends her time at parties in Paris, during which she seduces older men and pursues each momentary whim. The two live happily together, content to eschew emotional attachments and embrace life’s immediate pleasures. 

At the beginning of the novel, Quoirez establishes the dynamic of Cécile’s unconventional home life. From there, she leads Cécile into a condensed bildungsroman, which takes place during an extended summertime holiday that Cécile, her father, and his current mistress, Elsa, take. The trio travels to the Mediterranean and rents “a large, white, isolated, beautiful villa.” While there, they spend their days amidst the cool waves and comfortable sands. In the first week of their holiday, Cécile meets Cyril, a twenty-six-year-old man with whom she quickly becomes involved because he embodies the maturity she finds attractive in her father’s friends. 

It is a time of perfect, uninhibited pleasure to which Cécile, writing retroactively, longs to return. However, the arrival of Anne, one of Cécile’s mother’s old friends, shatters their peaceful stay. Anne is elegant and aloof, yet her seemingly unshakeable composure belies a deeply sentimental soul. Her presence rattles Cécile, who views the intelligent and poised older woman with both awe and fear. However, she knows Anne expects much of her and resents the older woman’s faith in her. Cécile also resents the pressure Anne places upon her to apply herself to her studies, as she sees them as pointless distractions. Moreover, Cécile is concerned by Anne’s unexpected interest in her father and worries about the conflict this may cause between him and Elsa. 

Her fears come true when they take a trip to Cannes; that night, Cécile notices her father pays disproportionate attention to Anne and ignores Elsa completely. Irritated, for once, by her father’s womanizing, she threatens to tell Elsa of their liaison. The two react angrily and force Cécile to agree to say nothing. In the morning, Cécile informs a devastated Elsa of her father’s infidelity, and she leaves in tears. Shortly after, Anne and Raymond tell Cécile that they plan to get married, which stuns her. Anne very quickly adopts the role of stepmother, feeling obligated to encourage Cécile to pursue academics rather than Cyril. Cécile is embittered by what she sees as Anne’s imposition into her life and resents the banal life she imagines the three of them will go on to live. Cécile wishes to avoid slipping into comfortable mundanity, so she plots to rid herself and her father of Anne. 

Cécile manipulates the forlorn Elsa and Cyril, whom Anne has forbidden her from seeing, into miming an affair. She knows that her father, who vainly fears feeling old and undesirable, will be driven mad if he thinks his former mistress has so quickly moved on with a much younger man. She knows her father well, so the scheme eventually succeeds; he pursues Elsa, and...