'Promise at Dawn' begins as the story of a mother's sacrifice. Alone and poor she fights fiercely to give her son the very best. Gary chronicles his childhood with her in Russia Poland and on the French Riviera. And he recounts his adventurous life as a young man fighting for France in the Second World War. But above all he tells the story of the love for his mother that was his very life their secret and private planet their wonderland "born out of a mother's murmur into a child's ear a promise whispered at dawn of future triumphs and greatness of justice and love." A romantic thrilling memoir that has become a French classic.