Philippe hopes that spending a week with his father who is moving to a senior residence near Paris following the suicide of his wife, will help him patch up their difficult relationship. He also wants to understand his mother's fatal deed, for which his father claims to have no explanation.

Intrigued by his father's lack of interest, Philippe investigates his parents' past before he was born and discovers the cruel environment of their youth. This is how he learns the secret that led his mother to her tragic decision.

Inspired by the gaps that all parents, even ones with peaceful pasts, leave in the stories they tell their children, Pierre Delerive has written a page-turning novel. A Dark and Distant Place delves into family histories-and finds that their connections to our present make them not so distant after all.