7.2 /10 1 Votes
Language English ISBN 0-224-00782-3 Dewey Decimal 823/.9/14 Adaptations Crash (1996) | 3.6/5 Goodreads Publication date June 1973 OCLC 797233 Originally published 1973 Publisher Jonathan Cape Country United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback) Genres Postmodern literature, Transgressive fiction Similar J G Ballard books, Novels | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Crash is a novel by English author J. G. Ballard, first published in 1973. It is a story about symphorophilia specifically car-crash sexual fetishism: its protagonists become sexually aroused by staging and participating in real car-crashes.
It was a highly controversial novel: one publisher's reader returned the verdict "This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do Not Publish!" In 1996, the novel was made into a film of the same name by David Cronenberg. An earlier, apparently unauthorized adaptation called Nightmare Angel was filmed in 1986 by Susan Emerling and Zoe Beloff. This short film bears the credit "Inspired by J.G. Ballard."
Plot summary
The story is told through the eyes of narrator James Ballard, named after the author himself, but it centers on the sinister figure of Dr. Robert Vaughan, a "former TV-scientist, turned nightmare angel of the expressways". Ballard meets Vaughan after being involved in a car accident himself near London Airport. Gathering around Vaughan is a group of alienated people, all of them former crash victims, who follow him in his pursuit to re-enact the crashes of celebrities and experience what the narrator calls "a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology". Vaughan's ultimate fantasy is to die in a head-on collision with movie star Elizabeth Taylor.