Promise at Dawn

Promise at Dawn is a 1960 autobiographical novel by the French writer Romain Gary. Summary Romain Gary tells the story of his childhood and youth with his mother, a Russian former actress carried by a love and unconditional faith in her son. The story, full of humor and tenderness, tells the story of her tireless battle against adversity, the extravagant energy she deploys so that he attain to a great destiny, and the efforts of Romain, who is willing to do all to make his life coincide "with the naive dream of the one he loves". The first part begins with the reveries of a mature Romain, remembering how, out of love for his mother, he had decided to stand against the stupidity and meanness of the world. It then relates his childhood years in the Polish city of Wilno (now Vilnius). Romain's mother instills in him his dreams of triumph: he will be a great man, admired and adulated, a great persuader, a great artist. They will go to France, a country she adorns with all virtues. During a brief period of prosperity, due to the success of a "Parisian haute couture" shop energetically run by his mother, he leads an extravagant lifestyle with a whole host of tutors. His mother pushes him, without success, into various artistic activities, and he does his best to discover his talents. He begins to write (or more precisely to look for pseudonyms evoking his future glory). He tells how he later become what his mother had predicted — a famous writer, a war hero  while relating the penniless period that followed their arrival in Wilno. His mother, to his horror, would announce his ambitions to the neighbors, and was duly showered with jibes. The failure of the fashion house brings them back to hard times. They move to Warsaw, "temporarily", awaiting their move to what they consider their "real" country, France. A humiliation at school - he did not react whereas his mother was called "cocotte" - leads to the decision to move to Nice. In the second part, the narrator refers to his adolescence in Nice. Romain's mother, despite her energy in the face of adversity, is forced to ask for help - we imagine that she turns to the father of Romain. Romain devotes himself to writing, in order to attain the expected fame. He also makes his first experiences as a man, making his mother proud. She at last finds stability by becoming manager of the Hotel-Pension Mermonts. Life becomes happy.