The prologue opens with a couple running in the dead of winter, fleeing a man armed with an ax who explains to them that they should not have opposed the Paternoster tradition.

From there, the story will alternate between two periods: October-July (meeting and establishment of the Dana Mimouni-Basil Paternoster couple) and July (vacation at the Paternosters).

 

October: the young woman has just been dumped by her boyfriend. Desperate, drunk, she falls into the arms of the handsome Paternoster, with whom she spends the night. If the young man has

everything for him, she tries to avoid getting carried away.

 

July 23: the couple sets off for La Dombes. Dana is anxious at the idea of meeting the family of Basil Paternoster whom she knows to be bourgeois, whereas she, although educated, comes from a poor background and a single-parent family. The first exchanges go quite badly. Basil's parents, Célia (tall, elegant blonde and gynecologist) and Homère (dentist with a harelip) are unwelcoming and cast incongruous glances at her.

 

October: The day after their meeting, the young woman suffers from the absence of her new lover, who insisted on giving them 3 days of isolation before seeing each other again. However, he arrives the same evening under cover of a romantic parade. The grip is starting to set in.

 

July 23-25: The drinks drag on in the sun, and Dana, who is not used to drinking alcohol, gets drunk. She will quickly realize that it is a habit with Homère to try to get her to drink. The Paternosters show her around the house. The decor is grandiloquent, old-fashioned, and oppressive. Dana meets Théophile, Basil's brother, an intriguing character, full of spirit, who quickly becomes sympathetic in her eyes. The family evokes "Ernest", the so-called ghost of the house. At night, in this big strange house, Dana's cat and the Paternoster's cat fight a bit. Dana's cat serves as a mirror to her own situation throughout the novel. The next day, Célia, the mother, establishes a relationship of domination with Dana.

The days go by and the parents who are supposed to be absent working are still there all day long. Uncomfortable, Dana isolates herself and reunites with Théophile. She finds out he's Pinky Pig, an singer she loves during her adolescence. She tries to find out more about him, but there is no internet (or telephone) in the house. Dana confronts Basil with this news, and he clears up all his doubts about the reasons for his silence, and this technological isolation. While leaving to get a bottle of water in the night, Dana overhears a conversation between Homère and Célia, which is rather racist and threatening. However, she considers that the problem comes from her. Determined to fit into this upper-class family, become a star's sister-in-law, and turn upside down appearances, she starts to assert herself more clearly, which seems to work with in-laws.

 

March: The couple struggles, and the promising beginnings give way to the first conflicts. Encouraged by her mother, the young woman makes efforts to save her relationship.

 

April: A month later, she is happier than she has ever been. Determined to surprise her lover, she comes to wait for him at his workplace, and hears him talking about her as a "poor girl" from a colleague. The couple break up.

 

July 28: (3-day jump not explained in timeline). The cats still don't get along, and Dana can't stand up to her in-laws anymore. Célia remains hard, and Homère continues to serve her glass after glass of alcohol. Aware that the situation is suffocating, Basil takes Dana to town so she can contact her mother, to whom she describes a dream vacation. Basil takes the opportunity to impose a visit to Celia's gynecology office. She tries to refuse, unsuccessfully. The exam initially seems to be going well, but Celia is increasingly abrupt, even implying that Dana will have to have children quickly if she wants to avoid the breakup.

 

Mai: She is having a very bad time with the breakup and still hopes that a reconciliation is possible. But when her man comes home, the conversation turns sour. However, he manages to make her believe that she has misinterpreted the situation, and flatly apologizes. Troubled, tired, and moved by the first roses she was ever offered, she agrees to get back together.

 

July 28: Homère makes Dana extremely drunk. She lets herself go, feeling that the wind is changing direction and that the in-laws are finally starting to be kind to her.

 

June: She's so happy! And in love! She wants to give him children.

 

July 28-31: Dana and Homère talk. He touches her face and implies that she might change, telling her about different theories of dentistry about facial appearance. Dana thinks for a moment that she has been poisoned or hypnotized, but the others reassure her. Homère, Théophile and Basil bring her to the attic, where they show her old portraits of white men, all with mustaches or harelips. They teach her that only men are born in this family, and that all inherit a harelip. She believes it for a moment before Homère and Basil reveal to her that they are making fun of her. Annoyed, she goes back to drink with Théophile. He tells her to leave before it's too late, but, drunk, she ignores his warning. Dana has been losing weight for a while, eating poorly, struggling to tan, and even her beautiful brown curls are dulling. The psychological pressure intensifies. The next evening, the Paternosters host friends at their home, and once again Dana tries to pass off as more Caucasian than she is in order to facilitate exchanges with the old local bourgeoisie.

Théophile warns her again, but also specifies that he no longer takes his medication and is a little derailed. She doesn't listen to him. That same evening, Basil has his face scratched by one of the cats, frightened by the coming storm. Basil offers Dana a getaway to Lyon the next day, to get out of this anxiety-provoking climate. But the couple will not go to Lyon. The following day arrives Magda, a young Romanian woman, tall, blonde, elegant, and above all Basil's ex. She seems to have had an accident that caused partial paralysis of the face. Dana imagines her as an oligarch, before realizing that she, too, comes from a disadvantaged background. Madga freaks out and begs Basil to take her back, screams that she can change, that she's ready, and will become beautiful.

 

July 31: The couple still does not leave for Lyon, and the isolation intensifies. Instead, Célia offers Dana a ride and takes her to a pond represented in a cross-stitch painting that is particularly precious to the family. Dana confronts Célia about their strange and unspoken exchanges, but Celia dodges, pushes Dana into the water, and leaves. Soaked and furious, Dana returns home alone. She finds the parents and Basil there who seem to find the situation normal. Humiliated, she packs her suitcase and sets off for Paris. An hour later, she turns around, worried about damaging her relationship.

 

July 32: (deliberate error) The point of no return has been reached. Dana has forgiven Célia and is even grateful. She accompanies Homère in the vegetable garden. He makes him decapitate slugs - to protect his crops - and dig a big hole to start growing mushrooms. While searching the earth, she discovers a human tooth. Homère explains to her that these are the remains of Ernest, the ghost of the house, mentioned several times. Dana panics, but Homère laughs at her once again. He explains to her that planting human teeth is a tradition for this family of dentists, that the bones allow plants that poorly assimilate phosphorus in acidic soil to find complementary nutrients. In the afternoon, Basil and Dana are alone by the pool. The cat scratch on Basil's face has become infected. He warns Dana about sunburn. She explains to him that with her Arab genes, she has never had a heat stroke in her life. A few hours later, Dana is sick, blistered, suffering from a strong sunstroke. Before falling unconscious, she sees Théophile who tells her to be ready, that he will come and get her later.

 

July 15: TWIST! After six months of relationship, when the Wall has fallen and Germany is reuniting, Célia Mokhtari recounts how eager she is to become Célia Paternoster. From

the start, all the chapters of the past - without first names - between this young Kabyle and this handsome Frenchman are in fact the story of Célia and Homère, and not that of Dana and Basil. The story takes place in different years. The reader then understands that somewhere, Célia, today tall, blonde, white, and who was therefore Algerian at the time, had to undergo a metamorphosis.

 

July 33: Dana is woken up in the early morning by Théophile who tells her to remain silent. She turns around and discovers Homère naked, in his bed. She is scared for a moment before realizing that no, it is not Homère, but Basil who has aged, and that the cat scratch on his lip, infected for several days, is turning into a harelip, like his father.

Théophile and Dana flee. He brings the young woman to the mushroom hole and tells her that she has dug her own grave. Dana panics, Théophile pushes her into the hole. She struggles believing he is trying to bury her alive, when he is simply trying to hide her as a figure steps forward through the mist. Théophile and Dana run towards the pond (doing a symbolic loop with the prologue). Dana jumps into the water. At the other end of the pond, she is picked up by Homère. Exhausted, she gives up. But the family was not trying to kill her, it was a misunderstanding fueled by Théophile's psychotic personality. Dana sits up and finds that her hair has gone blond. She looks at Célia, and finally understands her strange glances, realizing that she is transforming, just as Célia must have done before her. She guesses that it must be it, the secret of the Paternosters. Becoming their father is the path mapped out for men, daddy's boys that they are, become, and engender. But the women sacrifice their identity, abandon their culture and their customs to conform to the expectations of these gentlemen and go up the social ladder ("Pater noster" is not only "our father" in Latin, but also a type of elevator.)

 

Epilogue: Dana has changed a lot. She is blond, white, happy but fears that her mother will not recognize her. However, when her mother comes to visit her, she pretends not to see anything, too happy to see that her daughter has become so beautiful. A last look between the two women shows that the mother understands very well what has just happened, but that she encourages her, because thanks to that, her daughter will have a better life than her… “and that’s all that matters”.