[LIVRES DE NOS MAISONS] San Antonio, the commissioner of these ladies

In the libraries of our family houses dragging abandoned books. Their authors were famous, perhaps … their glory passed, or not. This summer, BV invites you to discover some of these writers or these books.

Frédéric Dard, the father of San Antonioconfided one day: “I had my career with three hundred words. All the others, I invented them. »» Not false. Because Dard, it is above all a language. A bit like his friend Michel Audiard. Born in Isère, on June 29, 1921, our graphomaniac was born with the atrophied left arm. But that does not mean that he writes like a penguin. 175 adventures of San Antonioit’s not nothing. Not to mention dozens of other detective novels, written under many pseudonyms, including Kaput, and even sometimes under his true surname. In the end? 288 novels! To which must still be added twenty plays and sixteen adaptations of his works for the big screen.

A hero born by chance …

Man is an authentic jack-of-all-trades. Not bad, for a writer whose only childhood readings are The miserable et Nickel -plated feet. However, the rabid cow, he knew it closely. When his manuscripts did not find takers and when, by adventure, they ended up being printed, it was the buyers who did not jostle on the gate. Besides, this San Antonio to which he owes a fortune and renown, he did not believe it. Subject his accountthe first adventure of the petulant commissioner, published in the fall of 1949, is only printed in … 500 copies and will only sell a few dozen units.

But fate watches. Armand de Caro, a young publisher who has just founded the black river house, discovers fortuitously the book, at the stall of a bookist. He does not like the result, but press the commercial potential of this test gallop and offers Frédéric Dard to join his small business. As a child of Italian immigrants, this flamboyant self -taught will soon reign as a master on the French popular novel at the time. Man has flair. The proof is that from 1964, each adventure of San Antonio Enswit on nearly 200,000 copies, then reaching 600,000, two decades later. All cumulative editions, he will sell nearly two hundred million!

No wonder, therefore, that it is rare not to find, in the vacation of parents, parents-in-law and grandparents, a good old San Antonio From behind the fagots, forgotten in the attic or dragging on the shelf of amenities, like a relic of the past. Because, more than a book, it is an emblematic object: coverage with paper barely thicker than the rest of the work, inevitably obeying a charter of colors mixing blue and red. And, above all, the covers of the illustrator Michel Gourdon, a true stakhanovist of the genre, capable of producing almost thirty per month, are found from afar. If there is still a very active association of the friends of Michel Gourdon, it obviously owes nothing to chance, as the artist will have marked his time.

Struggling and slow beginnings …

Las, in 1970, Michel Gourdon signed his last cover for the hero of Frédéric Dard, with It doesn’t eat bread. Then they will be banal agency photographs, just to do more “modern”. Authentic fans of the series are literally dismayed.

At the same time, the author begins to tend to follow the bad slope; that of modernity. Paillardise, formerly good, gives way to vulgarity. Which could formerly have the ladies blush while making them laugh under cape no longer gives that to disgust, even in many male readers, however having read others, green and ripe steps. In short, Frédéric Dard Le Rabelaisien begins to make the sub-cell. Formerly alert, his pen is heavy. He multiplies unnecessary digressions, just just to listen to himself writing, bird considerations, on the occasion he assures that racism is not good, and that it is better to love than hatred. Damage. This is why, it is strongly advised to read only the first four volumes; the rest being generally to be thrown.

But eighty jewelry is not nothing and it is especially not given to everyone to create a universe in its own right. One of its most emblematic figures? Alexandre-Benoît Bérurier, known as Béru, who appears in Clients for the morguein the ninth episode. Béru, it’s more henaurme. Brought to the boustifaille and the buttock, he soon became the real hero of the series, a bit like Captain Haddock with Tintin. He will even be entitled to several dedicated books, including The standing according to Bérurierin which he officiates as a teacher in good manners in a school for upscale young girls. A treat. For the record, an alternative rock group from the end of the last century will baptize Bérurier Noir, in tribute to this earthy character. The ransom of deserved success.