"Serotonin" (from the name of a euphoric hormone) crosses a France that chews on its traditions, standardizes its cities, and destroys its countryside, bringing people to their limits. The middle-aged protagonist, an agricultural engineer, narrates his whole life, his friendship with an aristocratic farmer (an unforgettable fictional hero and an inverted idol of the protagonist), the failure of their youthful ideals, his lost libido, and his perhaps irrational hope of finding a lost love again.

The novel was considered "prophetic" - as often happens with Houellebecq's books - as it describes dramatically the anger of French farmers who are driven to suicide unable to cope with European standards and the globalized free market.

A novel about the desertification of a world without kindness, without solidarity, whose mutations have become uncontrollable. And also a novel about guilt and remorse.