Everything contained in this book that you hold in your hands is a literary game, created by Patrick Modiano and his accomplice, the exquisite illustrator Pierre Le-Tan. Everything is fictitious, starting with the supposed author of the piece. Well, the book includes some winks, because among the actors there are some who did exist, like Modiano's own mother, who was indeed a theater and film actress. It is part of the charm of this sophisticated pirouette that is presented as entertainment, but is much more than that: a prodigious exercise in literary and visual juggling that, under its apparent lightness, explores themes such as the corrosion of time, the abandonment of ideals of youth and the assumption of the disappointment that comes with growing up.