This book is a study of the novels of Boris Vian, the artist, writer, jazz musician and occasional pornographer. Primarily known for his classic novel of doomed young love, L'Ecume des jours, and the pseudonymously-written erotic roman noir J'irai cracher sur vos tombes, his work displays a bewildering variety of styles, genres and narrative voices. The purpose of this book is to show that Vian's novels in fact display an overall thematic coherence, dramatizing the growth of the individual from childhood to adolescent idealism and ultimate adult disillusion. Vian is a highly...