The Beach - Hardcover

Alex Garland

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1573220485 ISBN 13: 9781573220484

Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover, 1997

Synopsis

A rootless young Westerner believes he has stumbled upon paradise on a remote island off Thailand, a place known as "The Beach," until he discovers the deadly underside of the island's culture. A first novel. 150,000 first printing. $150,000 ad/promo.

About this title

Review:

In our ever-shrinking world, where popular Western culture seems to have infected every nation on the planet, it is hard to find even a small niche of unspoiled land--forget searching for pristine islands or continents. This is the situation in Alex Garland's debut novel, The Beach. Human progress has reduced Eden to a secret little beach near Thailand. In the tradition of grand adventure novels, Richard, a rootless traveler rambling around Thailand on his way somewhere else, is given a hand-drawn map by a madman who calls himself Daffy Duck. He and two French travelers set out on a journey to find this paradise.

What makes this a truly satisfying novel is the number of levels on which it operates. On the surface it's a fast-paced adventure novel; at another level it explores why we search for these utopias, be they mysterious lost continents or small island communes. Garland weaves a gripping and thought-provoking narrative that suggests we are, in fact, such products of our Western culture that we cannot help but pollute and ultimately destroy the very sanctuary we seek

From the Inside Flap:

The Bookcassette® format is a special recording technique developed as a means of condensing the full, unabridged audio text of a book to record it on fewer tapes. In order to listen to these tapes, you will need a cassette player with balance control to adjust left/right speaker output. Special adaptors to allow these tapes to be played on any cassette player are available through the publisher or some US retail electronics stores.

About this edition

• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1573220485
• ISBN 13: 9781573220484
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 371