Dominique LaPierre

Dominique Lapierre 30 July 1931 2 December 2022 was a French author Dominique Lapierre was born in ChâtelaillonPlage CharenteMaritime France At the age of thirteen he travelled to the US with his father who was a diplomat Consul General of France He attended the Jesuit school in New Orleans and became a paper boy for the New Orleans Item He developed interests in travelling writing and cars Lapierre renovated a 1927 Nash that his mother gave him and decided to travel across the United States during his summer holidays To earn his way he painted mail boxes Later he received a scholarship to study the Aztec civilization in Mexico He hitchhiked throughout the US living an adventurous existence wrote articles washed windows in churches gave lectures and even found a job as a siren cleaner on a boat returning to Europe One day a truck driver who picked him up on the road to Chicago stole his suitcase He found the driver before the police did The Chicago Tribune paid him 100 for his exclusive story His twenty thousand miles of adventure beginning with just thirty dollars in his pocket led to his first book A Dollar for a Thousand kilometers It became one of the best sellers of postwar France and other European countries When Lapierre was eighteen he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study economics at Lafayette College in Easton Pennsylvania where he was graduated in 1952 That year he bought a 1937 Chrysler convertible for 30 and fell in love with a fashion editor They were married in New York City Hall on his 21st birthday and drove to Mexico in the old Chrysler for their honeymoon With only 300 in their pockets they had just enough to buy gas sandwiches and cheap rooms in truckers motels In Los Angeles they won another 300 in a radio game show for Campbell Soup The prize included a case of soup which was their only food for three weeks Lapierre sold the Chrysler for 400 in San Francisco and bought two tickets on the SS President Cleveland for Japan The honeymoon lasted for a year They worked their way across Japan Hong Kong Thailand India Pakistan Iran Turkey and Lebanon When they returned to France Lapierre wrote his second book Honeymoon around the Earth Source Article Dominique Lapierre from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30