What is the main conflict in Shame by Annie Ernaux?

When she was twelve years old, Annie Ernaux witnessed her father threatening to kill her mother. This dramatic childhood experience changed Ernaux in ways that she could not fully comprehend. So she committed herself to fully analyzing all the circumstances of her life at the time of the incident, and the results of that examination is Ernaux's eighth published work, the memoir La Honte (1997, Paris), translated into English as Shame (1998, New York). Shame was selected by Publishers Weekly as a best book of 1998.