Gérard Bournazel explores the first emotions of a young man in “A Summer in the Moraines”

If moraines are piles of rocks transported by glaciers, for the novelist Gérard Bournazel, it is also the name of the big house in the Foix region and the scene of his latest novel: A Summer in the Moraines. A story which tells the first steps in love of a young man in his family environment.

“It takes place in Ariège, in the 1920s, a time that I particularly like and which seems to me to be full of upheavals. »

Rich, just like the bourgeois family in the novel, locked in its immutable values. For his part, feelings blossom in the heart of young Alain, 16 years old at the start of the story, and who, over the pages, frees himself from these values. We swallow the book in total support of the narrator until the last page. Because the writing is crystal clear and is not lost in unnecessary flourishes.

“I like concrete things and things to be said clearly, without descriptive length, but with a main story that opens several drawers without getting lost,” smiles Gérard Bournazel, who lets go of a few elements of his own existence.

“I am a Parisian, a true Parisian. I worked in banking for 25 years, but one day I decided to leave everything. I remember saying to my superior: you have one week to find a replacement, I’m leaving! »And just as epic was his arrival in Ariège in 1991.

“I took the map of France, I knew where I didn’t want to go, and it was during the holidays that I arrived at the foot of the Château de Foix, bathed in sunshine. This is where I want to live. » Here, he had to do something concrete, build houses, feel useful, but it was much later, once retired, immobilized by an operation, that he satisfied his secret passion: writing.

“In one week, I had already filled out a notebook, then a second. » And a first novel, and many others, until the last one released in November 2024. A book in any case well received by its publisher as well as those around it.

“What pleases me is that my readers tell me that they don’t put the book down until the end. » A summer in the moraines, 156 pages, Le Lys Bleu edition, €17, available in local stores or online.
Michel Buc