The Misunderstanding" is Irene Nemirovskys first novel written when she was just twenty-one & published in a literary journal two years later. An intense story of self-destructive & blighted love it is also a tragic satire of French society after the Great War. Yves Harteloup scarred by the war is a disappointed young man old money fallen on hard times who returns for the summer to the rich comfortable Atlantic resort of Hendaye where he spent blissful childhood holidays. He becomes infatuated by a beautiful bored young woman Denise whose rich husband is often away on business. Intoxicated by summer nights & Yves intensity Denise falls passionately in love before the idyll has to end & Yves must return to his mundane office job. In the mournful Paris autumn their love founders on mutual misunderstanding in the apparently unbridgeable gap between a life of idle wealth & the demands of making a living between a womans needs & a mans way of loving. As Denise is driven mad with desire & jealous suspicion Yves too sure of her tortures himself & her with his emotional ambivalence. Taking her sophisticated mothers advice Denise takes action.. .which she may regret forever. With a sharp satirical eye & a characteristic perception for the fault lines in human relationships Irene Nemirovskys first novel shows sure signs of the brilliant novelist she was to become."