The Life Before Us is the story of an orphaned Arab boy, Momo, and his devotion to Madame Rosa, a dying, 68-year-old, 220-lb. survivor of Auschwitz and retired "lady of the night." Momo has been one of the ever-changing ragbag of whores' children at Madame Rosa's boardinghouse in Paris ever since he can remember. But when the check that pays for his keep no longer arrives and as Madame Rosa becomes too ill to climb the stairs to their apartment, he determines to support her any way he can. This sensitive, slightly macabre love story between Momo and Madame Rosa has a supporting cast of transvestites, pimps, and witch doctors from Paris's immigrant slum, Belleville. Profoundly moving, The Life Before Us earned France's premier literary prize, the Prix Goncourt.

Momo

Romain, Gary

Literature & Fiction

Collins, Harvill Press

The novelist's final work, a tale of a rich old man--Solomon Rubinstein--a self-appointed reliever of misery, and the young man he hires and teaches about humor, grace, and life

King Solomon (English and French Edition)

Harper&Row

Kites

Penguin Classics

The Kites

Europa

DOUBLEDAY

Both a personal memoir and a French novelist's encounter with American reality, White Dog is an unforgettable portrait of racism and hypocrisy. Set in the tumultuous Los Angeles of 1968, Romain Gary's story begins when a German shepherd strays into his life: "He was watching me, his head cocked to one side, with that unbearable intensity of dogs in the pound waiting for a rescuer." A lost police canine, this "white dog" is programmed to respond violently to the sight of a black man and Gary's attempts to deprogram it—like his attempts to protect his wife, the actress Jean Seberg; like her endeavors to help black activists; like his need to rescue himself from the "predicament of being trapped, lock, stock and barrel within a human skin"—lead from crisis to grief. Using the re-education of this adopted pet as a metaphor for the need to quash American racism, Gary develops a domestic crisis into a full-scale social allegory.

The White Dog

Signet

The Guilty Head

Dutton Adult

NOTHING IMPORTANT EVER DIES

Corgi

Marc Mathieu is a brilliant creator -- a scientist whose experiments have led him to the very essence of man's life-energy. Leading a team of top French physicists, Mathieu develops a method to capture and harness this incredible life-force as it escapes from a man's body at the moment of death. The result is the gasp: a pulsating sphere of energy that looks as harmless as a ping-pong ball but contains a power source that makes the atom obsolete.

The Gasp

Pocket_Books

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Books by Romain, Gary