Death of journalist and writer Philippe Labro, America at heart

Legend has it that he entered Gaston Gallimard's office in 1967, threw a manuscript on his desk—that of Les Feux mal étanches —and, half-heartedly and half-provocatively, said, "Here comes the future Goncourt." He didn't win the prize that year. Nor later, for that matter, when he was touted as the favorite with his Eté dans l'Ouest (Summer in the West) in 1988, then his Petit Garçon (Little Boy) in 1990. But Erik Orsenna and Jean Rouaud would deprive him of this award, which this jack-of-all-trades saw as a holy grail. The anecdote, in any case, says a lot about the character, both talented and hammy, confident in his lucky star that placed him, throughout a brilliant career, in the right places at the right times. If being lucky is one of the qualities that every good journalist must possess, then Philippe Labro is a paragon of the profession. Which doesn't take away from his achievements or his dark spots. Journalist, revered director of RTL, writer but also lyricist for Johnny Hallyday and obsessive exegete of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Philippe Labro died this Wednesday, June 4 in Paris. He was 88 years old.

This graphomaniac had depicted his childhood in The Little Boy, an autobiographical coming-of-age novel. This native of Montauban, in 1936, tells of his parents, his large family (three brothers and three sisters), and the Jews hidden during the war (Jean-François and Henriette Labro will be reco