Cocaine Nights. J. G. Ballard

      

      Cocaine Nights

      J. G. BALLARD

       Copyright

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      Fourth Estate

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in hardback in Great Britain by Flamingo 1996

      Copyright © J. G. Ballard 1996

      Introduction copyright © James Lever 2014

      Interview copyright © Travis Elborough 2006

      Cover by Stanley Donwood.

      Photography by Medemea

      J.G Ballard asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this e-book has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9780006550648

      Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007378814

      Version: 2016-10-10

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

       Introduction by James Lever

1 Frontiers and Fatalities

2 The Fire at the Hollinger House

3 The Tennis Machine

4 An Incident in the Car Park

5 A Gathering of the Clan

6 Fraternal Refusals

       7 An Attack on the Balcony

       8 The Scent of Death

       9 The Inferno

       10 The Pornographic Film

       11 The Lady by the Pool

       12 A Game of Tease and Chase

       13 A View from the High Corniche

       14 A Pagan Rite

       15 The Cheerleader’s Cruise

       16 Criminals and Benefactors

       17 A Change of Heart

       18 Cocaine Nights

       19 The Costasol Complex

       20 A Quest for New Vices

       21 The Bureaucracy of Crime

       22 An End to Amnesia

       23 Come and See

       24 The Psychopath as Saint

       25 Carnival Day

       26 The Last Party

       27 An Invitation to the Underworld

       28 The Syndicates of Guilt

       Keep Reading

       Interview with J. G. Ballard

       About the Author

       By the Same Author

       About the Publisher

       INTRODUCTION BY JAMES LEVER

      ‘I COULD SUM UP the future in one word,’ J. G. Ballard said in 1994, during an interview collected in Extreme Metaphors, the indispensable anthology of Ballard’s conversation, ‘and that word is boring. The future is going to be boring.’ The gated communities of the Costa del Sol which form the backdrop of Cocaine Nights are the