Les Gadoues

Gill is a young boy with a talent for happiness. In all that surrounds him, he sees only the bright side. The dump situated three kilometres from the small northern French town where he lives ? A mine of chemical cleansers for resale to buyers of scouring powder and the source of pocket money. His mother Marie-Rose’s hysterics ? Passing storms. The odd behaviour of his Down’s Syndrome big brother, Marcel ? Poetic whimsy to be watched over with affection… As to his beloved Françoise, in his eyes she’s a fairy princess, an angel… But this idyllic childhood universe is about to fracture when some people begin to recall the years, before Gill’s time, of the Occupation. And in the 60s, those years still cast a sinister shadow…

The author of Fred Hamster et Madame Lilas, winner of the 2004 RTL-Lire Prize, and of Crissement sur le tableau noir, Philippe Delepierre is a teacher of literature in a secondary school near Lille.