Crash (J. G. Ballard novel)

Crash

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	J. G. Ballard
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Postmodern novel, Transgressive fiction
Publisher	Jonathan Cape
Publication date	June 1973
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
ISBN
OCLC	797233
Dewey Decimal	823/.9/14
LC Class	PZ4.B1893 Cp PR6052.A46
Preceded by	The Atrocity Exhibition
Followed by	Concrete Island

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 Do Not Publish!"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."

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.

The Normal's 1978 song "Warm Leatherette" was inspired by the novel, as was "Miss the Girl," a 1983 single by The Creatures. The Manic Street Preachers' song "Mausoleum" from 1994's The Holy Bible contains the famous Ballard quote about his reasons for writing the book.