Half-brothers Michel & Bruno have a mother in common but little else. Michel is a molecular biologist, a thinker & idealist, a man with no erotic life to speak of & little in the way of human society. Bruno, by contrast, is a libertine, though more in theory than in practice, his endless lust is all too rarely reciprocated. Both are symptomatic members of our atomised society, where religion has given way to shallow `new age` philosophies & love to meaningless sexual connections. Atomised (Les Particules elementaires) tells the stories of the two brothers, but the real subject of the novel is the dismantling of contemporary society & its assumptions, its political incorrectness, & its caustic & penetrating asides on everything from anthropology to the problem pages of girls` magazines. A dissection of modern lives & loves. By turns funny, acid, infuriating, didactic, touching & visceral.