[1] Bazin, born Jean-Pierre Hervé-Bazin in Angers, Maine-et-Loire, France came from a high-bourgeois Catholic family.

She sent Bazin to a variety of clerical establishments and then to the military academy, the Prytanée de la Fleche, from which he was expelled as incompetent.

[2] He opposed his authoritarian mother, ran away several times during his teens, and refused Catholic teachings.

The novel portrays the hatred between a mother nicknamed Folcoche (from the French "folle" (crazy) and "cochonne" (pig) and her children, including the narrator Jean Rezeau, called "Brasse-bouillon".

Politically, Bazin belonged to the Mouvement de la Paix, in relation with the communist party of which he was a sympathizer.

Due to a juridical imbroglio, the six children of his first marriages obtained, against the will of his last spouse and last son, the auction of the archive at the Hôtel Drouot on 29 October 2004.