Raymond brushing pine needles off of his suit, Anne drives off in tears and her car plunges from a cliff in an apparent suicide. Cécile and her father return to the empty, desultory life they were living before Anne interrupted their summer and consider the impact Anne has had on their lives. Cécile lives with the knowledge that her manipulations led to Anne's death and longs for the summer they shared. Characters Cécile, a wealthy and careless seventeen-year-old girl Raymond, her middle-aged father, a notorious partier and ladies' man Elsa, Raymond's latest mistress at the beginning of the novel Anne, an old friend of Cécile's mother, who mentored Cécile after she withdrew from Catholic boarding school Cyril, a young man who lives near the house Raymond rents for the summer Reception An early brief review of Irene Ash's English translation (John Murray, 1955), in The Times of 19 May 1955, describes it as "An unusual little fiction ... written by a 19-year-old girl from the Dordogne ... a nice piece of precocity". The reviewer in The Spectator of the same date said "Bonjour, Tristesse, which has achieved remarkable celebrity by virtue of its subject-matter and its authoress's age, is a vulgar, sad little book". Cultural adaptations German-American filmmaker Otto Preminger produced and directed a film adaptation of the book through his film production company Wheel Productions. Bonjour Tristesse was released in 1958 and stars Jean Seberg, Deborah Kerr and David Niven. Canadian dark ambient band Soufferance based and themed their 2011 concept extended play on the book. Titled Bonjour Tristesse, the EP features a single 17-minute song. A follow-up concept album was released a year later, titled Adieu Tristesse, which also took elements from the novel. See also Le Mondes 100 Books of the Century References 1954 French novels French novels adapted into films Novels by Françoise Sagan Novels set in Provence French Riviera 1954 debut novels