“Credits”: Damien Peynaud signs a striking first novel

With CreditsDamien Peynaud signs an intimate story about over -indebtedness, social shame interspersed with childhood memories and cinematographic references. However, A personal work, carried by a writing as precise as it is sensitive. – "credits": damien peynaud signs striking

For his first novel, Damien peynaud proposes a singular work, between autobiographical account, social essay and reflection around figures of cinema. Moreover, At the start, there are two brothers who meet with their parents to sort old photos. It is the starting point of a dive in time. that of a childhood in the 1980s, marked “credits”: damien peynaud signs striking by over -indebtedness, shame, and the collapse of a family of the middle class.

It is not so much the poverty that is told in this book, as the slow descent caused by consumer credit, the unnecessary objects accumulated with borrowing, the loneliness that follows bankruptcy. The father. a central figure of the book, is portrayed as a man caught in the illusion of possession, a victim as much as an accomplice of an economic system that does not make feelings. The rest the family is suffered, almost resigned, this social decline in silence … Despite pain and anger.

This very personal story is enriched by a variety of cinematographic references: Gérard Jugnot In A formidable era. “credits”: damien peynaud signs striking Louis de Funès In The stingy, Sergio Leone or The grapes of anger, Like so many digressions that also illustrate the themes of the book that can be social forfeiture, the relationship to money or even betrayed childhood.

Damien peynaud Shows us in the last part. how the credit system, then emerging in the 1980s was going to trap many families in this decade and the following.

Without ever sinking into pathos. nor yielding to Manichaeism, written with in a neat style and very precision, an obvious emotional charge Credits is a great success which, I hope, will call others.

Benoit RICHARD

Credits
Roman of Damien Peynaud
272 pages – 21€
Publisher: black on white
Date of publication: August 21, 2025