Gilles Marchand returns with a novel on annoyed dreams

The Bordeaux author returns with orphan promises. Furthermore, a sensitive novel that follows the journey of a young dreamer in France of the Thirty Glorious Years.

Gilles Marchand, revealed in 2016 with A mouth without anyone (To the forges of Vulcan), returns with Orphan promisesa melancholy novel. Moreover, To be published on August 22 by editions in the Forges de Vulcain. Therefore, he follows Gino, a teenager from the 1950s fascinated by Le Progrès and haunted by a love of youth. Nevertheless, This new opus is one of the thirty titles selected for the Prix du Roman Fnac 2025. Furthermore, whose five finalists will be announced on August 28. For example, The winner will be appointed on September 22.

A young man offset – Gilles marchand returns novel annoyed

In an isolated village in Orleans, Gino grew up from the tumult of the century. Discreet student. little inclined to shine, he observes the world getting carried away: flying cars, conquest of space, speed record for aerotrain tested a few kilometers from home … if not taking part, he dreams and imagines this progress as a possible outcome.

One ball evening, he meets Roxane, who wants to become an actress. She becomes a fixed point of her story, a distant hope of what he could be if he dared. Between technological fascination and awakening of the feeling of love, Gino favors groped: Orphan promises tells this uncertain movement.

Intimate fresco of the thirty glorious

The novel is also part of a France which still believes in collective progress. Behind the big gilles marchand returns novel annoyed promises, Marchand chooses the small trajectories. His character evolves at the edge of this societal momentum, too slow and too idealistic. Aerotrain – Aerial Train Project aborted in the 1960s – became a metaphor for this modern world: brilliant but inaccessible.

Since his first work, Gilles Marchand has built a work populated by characters behind, like Gino. After A tightrope walker. Requiem for a apache or The soldier disadencated – Winner of the Prix des Libraires 2023 -, he again confirms his predilection for interior voices. He also co-wrote a youth novel, The second breathcrowned by the Izzo Prize in 2022.

Feed narration, tenderness for erased figures: the author deploys a simple and sensitive prose. Realistic and yet poetic, his writing marries the hesitations of his characters. Orphan promises promises to extend this universe, placing a young man at the center of modernity that history will forget.