GABRIEL EST DANS LE CIEL / GABRIEL IS IN THE SKY
The French writer Olivier Mathieu has devoted several books to David Hamilton. In fact he wrote a book about the American actress Dawn Dunlap (actress of “Laura the Shadows of Summer” 1979) and two books about David Hamilton. It was in these books that David Hamilton’s alleged “suicide” was first questioned. Thus, no one disputes Olivier Mathieu for being the forerunner of a defense of David Hamilton since he opened his blog “In defense of David Hamilton” in the aftermath of the death of the great British photographer.
One of these two books (“C’est David Hamilton qu’on assassine”) was prefaced by the great French-Swiss writer Roland Jaccard, who in the 1970s wrote the best-selling book L’exil intérieur (“The Inner Exile”), that inspired generations of readers. Roland Jaccard, born to a Jewish mother and an Austrian father in a family marked by an abundance of suicides, had an existence marked by many tragedies. A few years ago, he wrote a plea for euthanasia.
Today we are saddened to announce the death of little Gabriel at the age of eight from brain cancer (brain stem infiltrating glioma), diagnosed unexpectedly on April 21, 2019. Gabriel was not Olivier’s biological son, but he was raised by him.
This short life, this disease and this tragic death are the subject of the novel Dans le ciel (“In the Sky”) which Roland Jaccard has already mentioned on his literary blog, here.
As beautiful as the friendship between Olivier Mathieu and Roland Jaccard (who both admire Max’s work), so tragic is life, especially when it comes to children.
It should also be noted that, in this novel, David Hamilton is quoted four or five times. During his illness, the unfortunate little Gabriel sometimes observed, with admiration, David Hamilton’s album dedicated to the city of Venice. Last May, Gabriel was taken to Venice, where he spent a week. So he was able to see this wonderful city, which was the one of “Death in Venice”, one of Roland Jaccard and David Hamilton’s favorite films.