Crash: A Novel - Softcover

Ballard, J. G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250171512 ISBN 13: 9781250171511

Publisher: Picador, 2017

Synopsis

The Definitive Cult, Postmodern Novel―a Shocking Blend of Violence, Transgression, and Eroticism

Reissued with a New Introduction from Zadie Smith

When J. G. Ballard, our narrator, smashes his car into another and watches a man die in front of him, he finds himself drawn with increasing intensity to the mangled impacts of car crashes. Robert Vaughan, a former TV scientist turned nightmare angel of the expressway, has gathered around him a collection of alienated crash victims and experiments with a series of autoerotic atrocities, each more sinister than the last. But Vaughan craves the ultimate crash―a head-on collision of blood, semen, engine coolant, and iconic celebrity.

First published in 1973, Crash remains one of the most shocking novels of the twentieth century and was made into an equally controversial film by David Cronenberg.

About this title

Review:

J. G. Ballard's graphic, violent novel is controversial wherever it is read, even on Amazon.com's own Web page! The book's characters are obsessed with automobile accidents and are determined to narrate the horrors of the car crash as luridly as possible. In the words of the novel's protagonist, the wounds caused by automobile collisions are "the keys to a new sexuality born from a perverse technology." Read this novel and learn why David Cronenberg, who had previously adapted Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch for the screen, fought to turn it into his latest film.

About the Author:

J. G. BALLARD was born in 1930 in Shanghai. After internment in a civilian prison camp, his family returned to England in 1946. His 1984 bestseller Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His controversial novel Crash was made into a film by David Cronenberg. His autobiography Miracles of Life was published in 2008, and a collection of interviews with the author, Extreme Metaphors, was published in 2012. J. G. Ballard passed away in 2009.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1250171512
• ISBN 13: 9781250171511
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224