Running Wild
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- 6,49 €
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- 6,49 €
Descripción editorial
A high-security luxury housing estate in the Thames Valley sees a disturbing outbreak of violence in this compelling novella, newly reissued with an introduction from Adam Phillips.
Pangbourne Village is exclusive, expensive and protected from the outside world by the very latest in security systems. A seeming idyll of family life; the perfect place to bring up a child. So why, in the space of ten minutes early one morning, were the thirty-two adult residents brutally murdered, and all thirteen children abducted? After months of fruitless investigation – and no word of the children or a ransom – the police are mystified. It is only when psychiatrist Richard Greville is called in that the truth behind the massacre gradually becomes clear.
This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Ali Smith, Iain Sinclair, Martin Amis and Ned Beauman) and brand-new cover designs from the artist Stanley Donwood.
Reviews
‘A tight, macabre tale…A well-constructed and superbly written novella. As a malevolent gesture in the direction of facts we prefer to ignore, it provides a salutary chill.’ Jonathan Coe, Guardian
‘In words as crisp as a well-cut film, Ballard’s gripping story shocks middle-class assumptions to the roots.’ Mail on Sunday
‘Has the impact of a black-and-white television documentary. The writing is elegant, taut and economical, the story gripping.’ Sunday Times
‘A particularly chilling fable…Ballard in a nutshell.’ Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
‘Simultaneously a detective novel, a psychological horror novel and a dystopian political novel. “Running Wild” may well be remembered as one of the major political novels of our time.’ New York Review of Science Fiction
About the author
J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai. After internment in a civilian prison camp, his family returned to England in 1946. His 1984 bestseller ‘Empire of the Sun’ won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His controversial novel ‘Crash’ was made into a film by David Cronenberg. His autobiography ‘Miracles of Life’ was published in 2008, and a collection of interviews with the author, ‘Extreme Metaphors’, was published in 2012. J. G. Ballard passed away in 2009.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thirty miles outside of London lies a suburban utopia called Pangbourne Village, an exclusive residential development in which all the houses are new, the security system is impeccable, parents are happy and children are provided with a nonstop roster of structured activity. But fans of Ballard's High Rise , in which he turned an apartment tower into a warring miniature city, will recognize his dim view of fabricated societies. Indeed, in his eerie new novella's first moments, Pangbourne's 32 adults are found murdered, and the complex's 13 children, all but one of them teenagers, have vanished. Written as a police psychiatrist's forensic diary, the story unfolds as an investigation that quickly points to the children themselves as culprits. Though the author sketches a sharp portrait of complacent privilege in Thatcher's England and tells a provocative story with a jolting final twist, the explanation of a carefully coordinated plot among the youths--``in a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom''--is unduly glib. At just over 100 pages, that's really all there is to it; this is, in every sense, a minor work by a major writer.