Crash A Novel

In this hallucinatory novel, the car provides the hellish tableau in which Vaughan, a "TV scientist" turned "nightmare angel of the highways," experiments with erotic atrocities among auto crash victims, each more sinister than the last. James Ballard, his friend and fellow obsessive, tells the story of this twisted visionary as he careens rapidly toward his own demise in an intentionally orchestrated car crash with Elizabeth Taylor. A classic work of cutting edge fiction, Crash explores the disturbing potentialities of contemporary society's increasing dependence on technology as intermediary in human relations.

J. G. Ballard is the author of numerous books, including Empire of the Sun, Concrete Island, and The Kindness of Women. He is revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the consequences of twentieth-century technology. His latest book is Super-Cannes. He lives in England.

"A work of very powerful originality. Ballard is among our finest writers of fiction."—Anthony Burgess