Book - BookDetective

Name: The Elementary Particles

Also published as: Atomised

Author: Michel Houellebecq
Year: 2000
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Genres/categories:
Fiction, Award winners, Contemporary
Culture: France

Purchase/reserch links:

ISBNs:
9780375727016
0375727019

An international literary phenomenon, The Elementary Particles is a frighteningly original novel - part Marguerite Duras and part Bret Easton Ellis-that leaps headlong into the malaise of contemporary existence.

Bruno and Michel are half-brothers abandoned by their mother, an unabashed devotee of the drugged-out free-love world of the sixties. Bruno, the older brother, has become a raucously promiscuous hedonist himself, while Michel is an emotionally dead molecular biologist wholly immersed in the solitude of his work. Each is ultimately offered a final chance at genuine love, and what unfolds is a brilliantly caustic and unpredictable tale.