The acclaimed French film The Clockmaker was based on this affecting study of a father and his teenage son, turned murderer. Dave Galloway owns a jeweler's shop in a village in New York State. Deserted by his wife, he has raised his son, Ben, from infancy. He believes he has been a good father; and Ben, now sixteen, has never caused him any trouble. When news of the manhunt for his runaway son reaches him, Galloway begins the painful search for understanding. He finds the key in rebellions of the past - his own and his father's before him. La fugue, la délinquance, le meurtre : en quelques jours, pour une amourette avec une fille de son âge, Ben Galloway, à seize ans, a commis l'irréparable. C'est dans la prison d'Indianapolis que son père, Dave, modeste horloger d'un village de l'Etat de New York, le retrouve. Mais le garçon se mure dans un silence hostile que n'entameront ni le procès, ni la condamnation à la prison perpétuelle. Comment, pourquoi cet enfant qu'il a élevé seul sa mère les a quittés quand il avait six mois - a-t-il pu devenir à ce point un étranger ? Qu'adviendra-t-il de l'enfant qui va naître de la brève union de Ben et de Lillian ?
Author
Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (1903 – 1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret. Although he never resided in Belgium after 1922, he remained a Belgian citizen throughout his life. Simenon was one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, capable of writing 60 to 80 pages per day. His oeuvre includes nearly 200 novels, over 150 novellas, several autobiographical works, numerous articles, and scores of pulp novels written under more than two dozen pseudonyms. Altogether, about 550 million copies of his works have been printed. He is best known, however, for his 75 novels and 28 short stories featuring Commissaire Maigret. The first novel in the series, Pietr-le-Letton, appeared in 1931; the last one, Maigret et M. Charles, was published in 1972. The Maigret novels were translated into all major languages and several of them were turned into films and radio plays. Two television series (1960-63 and 1992-93) have been made in Great Britain. During his "American" period, Simenon reached the height of his creative powers, and several novels of those years were inspired by the context in which they were written (Trois chambres à Manhattan (1946), Maigret à New York (1947), Maigret se fâche (1947)). Simenon also wrote a large number of "psychological novels", such as La neige était sale (1948) or Le fils (1957), as well as several autobiographical works, in particular Je me souviens (1945), Pedigree (1948), Mémoires intimes (1981). In 1966, Simenon was given the MWA's highest honor, the Grand Master Award. In 2005 he was nominated for the title of De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian). In the Flemish version he ended 77th place. In the Walloon version he ended 10th place.
