The world of Mood Indigo is a stained-glass cartoon kind of a place, where the piano dispenses cocktails, the kitchen mice dance to the sound of sunbeams, and the air is three parts jazz. Colin is a wealthy young aristocrat, a slim, innocent creature who loves easily. The instant he sees Chloe, bass drums thump inside his shirt, and soon the two are married. Typically generous, Colin gives a quarter of his fortune to his best friend Chick so he can marry Chloe's friend Alyssum. But a lily grows in Chloe's lung, and Colin must spend his remaining fortune on the only available treatment: surrounding her daily with fresh flowers. Chick squanders his share of Colin's money on rare editions of Jean Pulse Heartre, and Alyssum decides her only recourse is to murder the philosopher whose books are ruining her husband. Chick and Colin's money woes force them to sacrifice their carefree lives to soul-crushing work, and even the suicidal mice wear themselves out trying to restore the lustre to the kitchen tiles. Published initially in French as L'Ecume des jours, originally translated as Froth on the Daydream, Mood Indigo is a surreal cult classic that is now a a major movie directed by Michel Gondry starring Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris.

Your heart will be broken. You will be confused and confounded. You will laugh aloud. And at least for a time, however hard you try, your own world will refuse to be what you think it is * LA Times *
The most heartbreakingly poignant modern love story ever written -- Raymond Queneau
A rare example of Gallic magical realism * New Statesman *

Boris Vian (1920-59) was a French writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. Best remembered for L'Ecume des jours (translated into English by Stanley Chapman as Froth on the Daydream and renamed Mood Indigo to tie in with the film), Vian's work is characterised by the dazzling wordplay and surreal plots which made him a cult figure in 1960s France and beyond.