Summary:

Bonjour Tristesse is a novel about a seventeen-year-old girl, Cécile, written by an eighteen-year-old, Françoise Quoirez (pen name Sagan). Published in 1954 in France and 1955 in the United States, the story was an immediate success.

Cécile's mother died when the girl was two, and she lives with her forty-year-old father, Raymond. Raymond enjoys parties, young women, drink and easy conversation. He, Cécile and his latest girlfriend, Elsa, sojourn on the southern coast of France, where Cécile meets and toys with a young law student. Cécile is mercurial in her thoughts, but once a true rival for her father's affections arrives at the summer house, her jealousy surfaces fully. Anne had been a friend of Cécile's mother, and, unlike Raymond's other love interests, is intelligent and similar in age.

Tragedy ensues from Cécile's plotting and her father's weaknesses, and the question remains whether suicide or an accident occurred.

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