Chaix was born on 3 February 1942 in Lyon; her father was Albert Beugras who was a leader of the fascist French Popular Party.
[1] Chaix only knew that her father had something to do with politics as a child, but she was unaware that he was the right-hand man of fascist leader Jacques Doriot.
In 1969 Chaix became an advertising executive and she began writing a memoir about her father, titled The Laurels of Lake Constance, during that time.
The Laurels of Lake Constance is Chaix's first book and it was a bestseller, later winning the Prix Maison de la Presse in 1974.
Her book The Summer of the Elder Tree was published by Dalkey Archive Press and translated by her later husband Harry Mathews.