One of England's most influential novelists sets his latest work in the elite resort community of Estrella de Mar, where Charles Prentice has just arrived from London to visit his brother, Frank. When Frank confesses to a crime that Charles knows he couldn't have committed, Charles launches his own investigation.
Cocaine Nights
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When travel writer Charles Prentice arrives at Estrella de Mar, a resort town near Gibraltar populated primarily by British retirees, to find out why his brother Frank has been jailed, he's shocked to find that Frank has confessed to a spectacular act of arson that left five people dead. Charles tries to find the real culprit by hanging around Estrella de Mar, which one resident describes as "like Chelsea or Greenwich Village in the 1960s. There are theatre and film clubs, a choral society, cordon blue classes.... Stand still for a moment and you find yourself roped into a revival of Waiting for Godot." But the longer he stays, the more confused Charles is by the residents' breezy lack of concern about the constant background of vandalism, rape, prostitution, and drug dealing.
Things become clearer as Charles makes the acquaintance of local tennis pro Bobby Crawford, who has some interesting hypotheses about how to maintain the quality of the inner life in the age of affluence. As another of the locals explains, "Leisure societies lie ahead of us, like those you see on this coast. People ... will retire in their late thirties, with fifty years of idleness in front of them.... But how do you energize people, give them some sense of community?" Bobby's succinct answer, provided to Charles in another context: "There's nothing like a violent reflex now and then to tune up the nervous system." Bobby convinces Charles to help him replicate his social experiment in an adjacent retirement community, slowly convincing him that crime and creativity really do go hand in hand. But who, if anybody, takes the responsibility?
Cocaine Nights resonates quite neatly with Ballard's earlier science fiction and experimental stories. As early as The Atrocity Exhibition, Ballard was speculating about the salubrious effects of transgression, and his science fiction novel High Rise also deals with the introduction of violence to a self-contained paradise. Cocaine Nights differs from that earlier work primarily in that it is a naturalistic fiction set in a world that is much more ostensibly real, a world that, with a little less detached theorizing (even at his most natural, it seems, Ballard cannot help but be clinical) on the part of its characters, might even be mistaken for real. --Ron Hogan
From Publishers Weekly
This new novel by the celebrated nihilist who brought us such underground classics as Crash and Concrete Island is fairly mild by Ballard standards. It involves kinky goings-on in a wealthy British resort community in Gibraltar, where there's not much to do but suntan, get high and play sex games. Narrator Charles Prentice is a travel writer who has been summoned to Estrella de Mar by his brother, the manager of the Club Nautico, who has confessed to setting a fire that killed five people in the villa of the wealthy Hollinger family. Charles knows Frank didn't do it, and so does everyone else, so Frank's motivation is a mystery. The delinquent shenanigans around town soon point to Frank's devoted tennis pro Bobby Crawford, who, with the missionary zeal of a sociopath, rouses the anesthetized residents of Estrella de Mar with violence and fear. "You've seen the future and it doesn't work or play. People are locking their doors and switching off their nervous systems. I can free them," Crawford says. Ballard keeps the dialogue snappy and true; however, the leisurely pace, the comings and goings of this Porsche and that BMW, all the swimming and tennis practice sap the novel of any tension. Moreover, Charles is a dud; the charge inherent in one of his first sentences, "My real luggage is rarely locked, its catches eager to be sprung," is never borne out by his actions or the relationship between him and his brother. Ballard's fascination with the illicit plays like a routine exercise, though his bleak picture of trouble in paradise has the ring of truth.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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By Mac Tonnies
Format:Paperback
"Cocaine Nights" is a return to Ballard's psychological preoccupations. We're ushered into the quintessential Ballardian scenario: the microcosmic "culture" of the wealthy and retired. We quickly learn that all is not well, and follow the quasi-hard-boiled narrator as he succumbs to the community's visceral core. Bloody and provocative, "Cocaine Nights" is an excellent compliment to Ballard's other "landscape" novels ("Crash," "High-Rise," "Concrete Island"), in which he plumbs the apocalyptic interface between desire and environment, turning the psyche inside-out with the steely objectivity of a lab tech. "Cocaine Nights" is vintage Ballard psych-noir and won't disappoint.
By "odindog"
Format:Paperback
Ballard's attempt to "expose" the seedy underbelly of English retirement communities under the guise of mystery ultimately fails to deliver on its initial promise. The beginning, with whispered conspiracies and country club cliques, sets the stage for a scandal-laced, brutally honest look at leisure society and its inability and unwillingness to think outside the box without prompting. Unfortunately, the characters are ultimately shallow, the situations familiar (cocaine in discotheques, oh my), and, the mark of death for any mystery, predictable. The prose and Ballard's ability to breathe life into the strangest and far fetched situation shines through as usual, but this neither ranks as a good mystery, nor as good Ballard.
Format:Paperback
Well if you understood fight club, this is a book written before and based on the same ideals. Loving other humans, bringing people together, giving up as a liberation, lack of property as the way to ascend and more. This book is about waking people up, about putting a meaning to everything. It is an utterly symbolic book so most of the narrow minded and people without fantasy will never be able to read it. It is also a humorous book, sarcastic as hell, full of ideas alternatives and above all sooooooo entertaining.
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3.5 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ballard is a genius
And this is a brilliant novel of what lies under the thin veneer of civilisation that we all wear, an edgy exploration of the the violence that lies within us all. Read more
Published on Sep 13 2000
3.0 out of 5 stars
Sustaining the dream
This was the first J.G. ballard novel I had read, and first impressions of are of a curiously old fashioned novelist writing about very modern ideas. Read more
Published on July 25 2000 by Vodka and Cranberry
2.0 out of 5 stars
Club class? More like cruise control...
Not a bad story, with the usual Ballardian ideas. But that is the problem: J.G. Ballard is getting lazy. Read more
Published on July 11 2000 by flying-monkey
1.0 out of 5 stars
Oh Dear!
I know I can blame nobody but myself, but I was taken in by the interesting title and the reviews on the back: 'One of the few world-class British writers alive today. Read more
Published on Mar 30 2000 by Matthew Szabo
3.0 out of 5 stars
I'm ok it's ok
My major complaint is with the location. Mr. Ballard, it would be Estrella del Mar not Estrella De Mar. You forgat the article bro. It's ok. really. Read more
Published on Dec 7 1999 by "leper2000"
3.0 out of 5 stars
Crime as performance art
The cinematic beauty of the early apocalyptic books has been replaced by a stripped down, suburban set of tennis courts, retirement homes, and fancy boats. Read more
Published on Nov 20 1999
1.0 out of 5 stars
This book was like a joke you don't understand
After reading all the fine words and hyperbole on the back cover, I tucked-in, expecting a gripping read. Read more
Published on Oct 6 1999
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