Houellebecq Hunts for Meaning in Rural France

French writer Michel Houellebecq’s new novel Serotonin would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Released in the United States on November 19, the novel concerns a man in his mid-40s named Florent-Claude Labrouste who’s at the end of his rope. He is profoundly depressed, for reasons that start with his name and extend into every aspect of his life (Houellebecq says he’s “essentially deprived of reasons to live and of reasons to die”). Consequently, Labrouste untethers himself from his unsatisfying relationship with his 26-year-old Japanese swinger girlfriend and his career analyzing apricot sales for France’s Ministry of Agriculture, and goes “voluntarily missing.” He wanders into the countryside in search of a vague reason to keep going and reconnect with old flames. Instead he finds an economy and society in slow-motion collapse.