Using examples from art and literature, Frantzen explores the social, political and economic implications of both real and imagined depression. Is feeling blue a symptom of the death of progress? Was the suicide of David Foster Wallace a proverbial canary in a coal mine?

Margaret Thatcher once declared that there is no alternative to the social order that we now reside within. Have we accepted her slogan as a fact, and is that why so many are on Prozac and other anti-depressants?

Frantzen examines the works of Michel Houellebecq, Claire Fontaine and David Foster Wallace as he seeks out an answer and a way to formulate a new future oriented left movement.