Millennium People: A Novel
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"The most cosmically elegiac writer in literature . . . no one reading Ballard could doubt the tidal gravity of his intellect." —Jonathan Lethem, New York Times Book Review
Violent rebellion comes to London’s middle classes in this “fascinating” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel from the same author of Crash and Empire of the Sun. Never more timely, Millennium People “seeks to illuminate our hearts of darkness while undermining our assumptions about what literature is meant to do” (Los Angeles Times).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The middle class launches a violent revolution in this prophetic satire by the late master Ballard (1930 2009). David Markham, a psychologist, infiltrates the "rebellion of the new proletariat" at naturally a cat show, looking for the architects of the Heathrow Airport bombing that killed his ex-wife. What he finds are a bored coterie of suburbanites: charmingly unhinged academic Kay Churchill, biker-priest Stephen Dexter, and Kurtz-figure Richard Gould, who dreams of liberation from the 20th century. As David's spying becomes increasingly participatory, his actions begin to worry his second wife, Sally, who may herself be at risk of being swept up in Richard's plans to expand his campaign of structured "pointless violence." Ballard is a British Philip K. Dick, heir to Conrad and H.G. Wells, in whose stories the present, taken to extremes, anticipates the future. In fact, the only complaint to be made of this bruisingly smart novel is that it has taken eight years for it to appear in the U.S.
Customer Reviews
Millennium People
Surprising and lyrical. A brilliant view of the world. I was sad to finish it.