A gorgeous memoir of childhood, the mother-daughter bond and the transformative power of swimming, by multi-award-winning French author Chantal Thomas

Can a daughter ever really understand her mother?

Chantal Thomas grew up in a seaside town on the Atlantic coast of France, inheriting from her mother an obsession with the sea, and for swimming. In this tender and eloquent memoir she seeks to understand her quixotic, often inscrutable mother - a woman who was luminous in the water and once dived into the moat of the Palace of Versailles, but became fettered by marriage and domestic life.

Thomas combs the beaches of her childhood for memories, recalling the sensory pleasures of the sands, the first sharp touch of cold water, and discovering the multitude of ways in which she is still her mother's daughter.

Chantal Thomas was born in Lyon in 1945, and she was raised in Arcachon, Bordeaux and Paris. She has taught History at a number of French and American universities and is the author of over 20 books. She won the Prix Femina for her novel Farewell, My Queen (2002), and later received the prestigious Roger-Caillois and Prince Pierre de Monaco prizes for her entire oeuvre.