A moving novel about security and loss, about family bonds which we cannot escape and those of our own making. 11 August, 1999 – total eclipse of the sun. Like thousands of others, a family of five drives to Alsace where the natural spectacle is particularly impressive. Only the youngest son, however, returns from this excursion alive. In the night Eliane Hess, psychologist and single mother, is called to the hospital: eight-year-old Yves, miraculously unscathed, is in shock. He chatters nervously on and on – just not about what really matters. What does he remember of the accident? Did his father smash the car into the tunnel wall on purpose? Piece by jigsaw piece, Eliane is discovering a picture of a family headed towards catastrophe with their eyes open. And it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep a professional distance. Yves's fate horrifies and fascinates Eliane – in the same way the Isenheim Altarpiece has since her youth, of which it is said that a solar eclipse is represented on its first panel. When a tug-of-war over the boy's future begins between his relatives, Eliane reaches an unorthodox decision that will irrevocably change her life and that of her two daughters.