Crash
Zadie Smith
J. G. Ballard
When Ballard, our narrator, smashes his car into another and watches a man die in front of him, his sense of sexual possibilities in the world around him becomes detached. As he begins an affair with the dead man's wife, he finds himself drawn with increasing intensity to the mangled impacts of car crashes. Then he encounters Robert Vaughan, a former TV scientist turned nightmare angel of the expressway, who has gathered around him a collection of alienated crash victims and experiments with a series of auto-erotic 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 second half of the twentieth century and was made into an equally controversial film by David Cronenberg.
J. G. BALLARD
Crash
Copyright (#ulink_7d58c3f3-ae62-54d5-aa23-793db9ac5e61)
Fourth Estate
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First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape in 1973
Copyright © J. G. Ballard 1973, 1995
Introduction copyright © Zadie Smith 2014
‘The Road to Crash’ © Travis Elborough 2008
‘Autopia’, first published in Drive magazine in 1971 and subsequently in The User’s Guide to the Millennium (1996) © J. G. Ballard 1971
The right of J. G. Ballard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007287024
Ebook Edition © 1973 ISBN: 9780007324309
Version: 2014-07-03
Table of Contents
Cover (#u95c6df3f-1a6d-50c8-a1ad-d5bc382f271b)
Title Page (#u0acd73b3-fa0a-5549-9e47-370433f3335f)
Copyright (#u2a6cc2ec-e8d0-59e5-ad57-7c8243f1c415)
Author’s Note (#ub4ff24e9-6f17-5a63-91da-efddbef17d32)
Introduction by Zadie Smith (#u90fdb42c-6891-50c5-9990-e2a04646c11d)
Chapter 1 (#u61466511-da44-572f-9a2b-70e783b9a135)
Chapter 2 (#u3dc8d560-526e-5c26-8d07-494eed51501e)
Chapter 3 (#ue6215cef-7c13-5fad-85af-a8e2f216a8bd)
Chapter 4 (#u13b6eecc-bf76-5880-898b-4589918251f9)
Chapter 5 (#u1aa2ecf3-c729-5f0e-953d-b83fdc6201ae)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)