The book begins like a fictional tale, introduced by the photograph of a woman on a television screen, her hands on her face in a gesture of surprise, as if she had literally lost her head. It could be a story from another time, with its pale pink cover matching the barely visible wall in the photo of the actress on a television screen.
In the first third of the book J’ai perdu ma tête (“I Lost My Head”), Peter Granser refuses to show us who lives in the place where the story is set.