A.D.G.

Alain Camille ( Fournier; December 19, 1947 – November 1, 2004), known by his pen name A.D.G. (the initials of Alain Dreux-Gallou), was a French novelist and journalist.

For about ten years, A.D.G. was one of the leading authors of the Série Noire collection published by Gallimard. He represented a right-wing, even far-right, political sensibility—a stance that became more pronounced in the 1980s when he became the main organizer for the National Front in New Caledonia. This position set him apart within the French noir fiction revival of the 1970s, a movement largely dominated by writers with leftist, far-left, or anarchist leanings, such as Jean-Patrick Manchette, another prominent figure of the Série Noire during that decade. Whether in the titles of his crime novels or in his journalistic columns, he was also known for his fondness for wordplay.

Life A.D.G. was born on December 19, 1947, in Tours. After joining a military boarding school at the age of twelve and leaving the school system with only a BEPC (lower secondary education certificate), he began his working life as an employee at Crédit Lyonnais. He then went on to work as a secondhand bookseller and antiques dealer.

For some time, he was close to the polemicist Michel-Georges Micberth, who led the Jeune Force Poétique Française (Young French Poetic Force), and became his collaborator and literary director at the JFPF publishing house (from 1966 to 1971), where he wrote under the pseudonym "Alain Dreux-Gallou"—Dreux and Gallou being the surnames of two of his grandparents. His real name posed difficulties for use literature, due to its similarity to that of the well-known author Alain-Fournier, so he kept the initials of his pseudonym—A.D.G.—always written with three periods, as his pen name, he considered switching to the name Alain Camille, but quickly reverted to his original signature. In fact, he adopted Camille as his legal name, as he found his birth name too burdensome.

His first novel, La Divine Surprise, was inspired by the confidences of Jo Attia, a gangster and resistance fighter, whose biography he was ghostwriting at the time. Due to the mystery surrounding his true identity, some imaginative journalists once speculated that A.D.G. was a pseudonym for Raymond Queneau, while others believed the book to be the memoirs of a former gangster turned writer.

In his novels, unlike other authors of the Série Noire, he deliberately avoids glorifying the criminal underworld, which he considered to be made up of "dim-witted, foolish, and inconsistent idiots who ride on the fame that writers like Auguste Le Breton and José Giovanni have created for them." An admirer of Albert Simonin, A.D.G. sprinkled his early novels—particularly Les Panadeux—with slang expressions. He signed each of his novels by including a reference to the polemicist Paul-Louis Courier, whose commemorative monument has stood in the main square of Véretz since 1878.

In 1972, he published a Berrichon chronicle titled La Nuit des grands chiens malades, which was adapted into a film by Georges Lautner under the title Quelques messieurs trop tranquilles. The story features a hippie commune settling in a small village and clashing with a gang of criminals, eventually teaming up with local farmers. This was followed by a subtle tribute to Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Cradoque's Band; a heist story, Les Trois Badours, published under the pseudonym Alain Camille; and a return to the Berry region with Berry story. In 1977, he won the Mystère de la critique prize for L'otage est sans pitié. That same year, he wrote Le Grand Meaulnes, which imagines Augustin's return to his lost homeland—a work that serves as both a tribute to and a parody of the masterpiece by his great predecessor.

In Pour venger pépère (1980), a suspense novel that Jean-Patrick Manchette described as "very coherent, very accomplished, excellent," a young lawyer from the Tours bar investigates the death of his grandfather, who was killed during a heist shootout. In the background, we catch a glimpse of his favorite character: the alcoholic, anarchist-leaning journalist Sergueï Djerbitskine, also known as "Machin" (who is partly inspired by his friend Serge de Beketch, but also becomes a stand-in for A.D.G. himself in the novels set in New Caledonia).

In 1981, he tried his hand at a short 100-page story, La Nuit myope, which Jean Cochet described as "one hundred percent literary" and "a kind of pathetic epic of a half-hearted dreamer." Between late 1981 and early 1982, he gained scandalous notoriety by appearing on the first episodes of the TV show Droit de réponse. During the very first broadcast, he shouted "Long live Pinochet!", and in the third episode, during an off-air break, he punched the cartoonist Siné, who had insulted another Minute journalist also present on set.

In 1982, he moved to New Caledonia, where he began writing a historical novel about the island's colonization, Le Grand Sud, which became a bookstore success upon its release in 1987. While on the island, A.D.G. also engaged in intense political activism against the Kanak independence movement. He launched an anti-independence weekly newspaper and took charge of organizing the local branches of the National Front. His political militancy—which led to police custody and contributed to his poor reputation in mainland France—caused him to neglect his literary work. As a result, he abandoned plans for a sequel to Le Grand Sud and, between 1987 and 1991, wrote only three crime novels containing attacks on the independence movement—books he himself did not consider to be very good.

He returned to Metropolitan France in 1991. Struggling with a creative block, he was unable to regain the motivation to publish new novels and spent a period unemployed after being dismissed from Minute. He was the only prominent author of the Série Noire not to be reissued during the collection's 50th anniversary in 1997. In 2003, after a long absence, he made his return to crime fiction with a new novel set in Australia, Kangouroad movie. Patrick Raynal, then director of the Série Noire, published the book in the La Noire collection.

In 2007, a final novel, J'ai déjà donné..., was published posthumously by Le Dilettante. It serves as a kind of fictional apotheosis, bringing together the main characters from his earlier novels.

He married Martine Joulié in July 2004, shortly before his death.

Journalism

A.D.G. worked as a journalist in right-leaning publications, including socialist, Gaullist, and right-wing anarchism press:

1966: Freelance contributor for Réveil socialiste, run by former Socialist minister Jean Meunier 1968: Editor-in-chief of Révolution 70 1972–1973: Columnist at Actual-Hebdo

Later, he worked with the far-right press, serving in various roles:

1973–1981: Journalist, columnist, and eventually senior reporter for the weekly Minute During the 1980s: Founder of Combat calédonien, an anti-independence weekly in New Caledonia, where he lived from 1981 to 1991. His one-year participation in this press venture led to several fines and convictions. A.D.G. eventually gave up, while Combat calédonien 's main target, Edgard Pisani, also came out somewhat "battered" by the ordeal 1991–1994: Columnist at Minute After 1994: Member of the editorial team at the far-right weekly Rivarol, becoming its secretary general in 1998. He continued working there for another year, until his worsening illness forced him to step back. He also contributed to Le Figaro littéraire in 2003–2004.

Other work A.D.G. also wrote comic book scripts, notably for the monthly magazine Pilote, as well as television serials (Chéri Bibi, adapted from the novel by Gaston Leroux and aired in 1973, and Les Mystères de New York, written in collaboration with Jean-Pierre Richard and aired in 1976).

In 1981, he was at the center of a minor scandal following the publication in a special issue of the magazine (À suivre) of a comic titled Léopold Micheteau, détective, for which he was the scriptwriter and Benoît Sokal the illustrator. Some readers perceived antisemitic elements in the work, prompting the magazine's editors to publish an embarrassed editorial a few weeks later offering their apologies. However, the appearance of the Jewish characters—the source of the controversy—was solely the result of Sokal's illustrations and had nothing to do with A.D.G.'s script.

Death

A.D.G. died from cancer in 2004, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.

This version was strongly refuted by Doug Headline, Jean-Patrick Manchette's son. He noted that Sébastien Lapaque was a "former activist of the far-right student movement Action Française lycéenne and contributor to the royalist journal Action Française hebdo," and asserted, in an op-ed published by Libération, that the relationship between the two authors did not extend beyond the 1972–1977 period. This is also supported by academic Bertrand Tassou. According to Headline, their connection was limited to their collaboration within the Série Noire and ended in a falling-out—an outcome that was inevitable given their opposing political views. Also according to Headline, their correspondence amounted to no more than about ten letters.

Comments

Bernard Antony described A.D.G. as an "anarcho-reactionary" and a "Céline-style legitimist royalist" who, nevertheless, "was not always, in his novels, a transmitter of the Church's social and moral doctrine."

The sociologist Gabriel Thoveron writes: "A.D.G. is a nationalist, anti-parliamentarian, with heroes like the lawyer Pascal Delcroix, who can say that his friend Machin 'was the correspondent in Tours for a nationalist newspaper, and as for me, I had delightedly joined the sparse ranks of a monarchist party with legitimist leanings' (Pour venger Pépère). But A.D.G., at times ambiguous, claims in his own way to place himself within the spirit of the May '68 movement."

Works

1969: Open Letter to a Little Magistrate (Micberth, illustrations by Bernard Deyriès). 1971: The Divine Surprise (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1429; reissued in "Carré Noir" collection, no. 545) 1971: The Panadeux (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1443; reissued in "Carré Noir" collection, no. 518) 1972: The Truque March... (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1473; reissued in "Carré Noir" collection, no. 554) 1972: The Night of the Big Sick Dogs (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1482; reissued in "Carré Noir" collection, no. 197 under the title Quelques messieurs trop tranquilles; reissued in "Folio" collection, no. 2224) — adapted into a film titled Quelques messieurs trop tranquilles 1972: Cradoque's Band (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1493; reissued in "Carré Noir" collection, no. 373) 1972: The Three Badours (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1544; reissued in "Folio Policier" collection, no. 229) — For the first edition, A.D.G. used the pseudonym Alain Camille. 1973: Berry Story (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1586) 1974: Our brother who is odious... (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1662; reissued in "Carré Noir" collection, no. 566; reissued in "Folio Policier" collection, no. 171) 1974: I am a dark novel (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1692, reissued in the "Carré Noir" collection, no. 468) 1976: The hostage is merciless (Gallimard, "Super Noire" collection, no. 43; Mystery Critics' Prize tied with Enfantasme by Georges-Jean Arnaud) 1977: The Big Kid (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1717) — A title that was a subtle tribute to his namesake Alain-Fournier. Adapted as the sixteenth TV film in the crime anthology series Série noire, broadcast on TF1 in 1985. 1977: Just a joker (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1721; reissued in "Carré Noir" collection, no. 506) 1980: To avenge grandpa (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1806; reissued in "Folio Policier" collection, no. 153) 1980: The Investigations of Inspector Alfred Beaugat (Dargaud, "Pilote" collection) — Script by A.D.G., illustrations by Loro and North — Includes: Une Aventure de l'inspecteur Alfred Beaugat, Le Sale Grand Meaulnes, L'inspecteur Beaugat monte à Paris, and Fripe-futaille contre Lèche-douzils 1981: The Myopic Night (Balland, "L'Instant romanesque" collection; reissued in 2003 by Christian Durante, "Poche-numérique" collection) 1981: Black Bullets (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1825) 1982: We are not dogs (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 1862; reissued in "Folio Policier" collection, no. 189) 1987: Toys on the rock (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 2089) — a "Caledonian novel" of political fiction. 1987: The Great South (Jean-Claude Lattès) — a New Caledonian adventure novel. 1988: Nickel-Plated Tickets (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 2124) 1988: It's the galleys! (Gallimard, "Série Noire" collection, no. 2134) 2003: Kangouroad Movie (Gallimard, "la Noire" collection) Australian thriller 2007: I've Already Given (Le Dilettante, 278 pages), reissued by Actes Sud, "Babel noir" collection no. 22, 2008 2008: Gummed papers (Le Dilettante, 320 pages) 2009: Some [not too] calm ideas, Association Les Amis d'A.D.G., Paris, 48 pages. — Collects six columns written by A.D.G. from 1976 to 1978 in the magazine Item.