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.


The New York Times Book Review, A.O. Scott
What infuses Cocaine Nights is a curious blend of deadpan detachment and almost comical self-consciousness.


The Washington Post Book World, Elizabeth Hand
His novel is a bit of metaphysical terrorism as carefully planned and executed as that fatal blaze.


From Booklist
Charles Prentice arrives in the wealthy Spanish resort of Estrella de Mar not to vacation but to rescue his brother, Frank. Once the manager of an exclusive sports complex, Frank has been charged with murder in the deaths of five people killed in a house fire. It's obvious to everyone, including the police, that Frank is innocent, but he insists on pleading guilty. As Charles begins to investigate, he discovers that beneath the tony resort and its super-rich, ultrabored residents lies a netherworld of bootleg porn videos, hard drugs, and kinky sex, in which Frank played a role as a kind of criminal prankster. Veteran author Ballard, whose novel Crash (originally published in 1973) was the source material for the controversial movie, has a gift for fashioning thought-provoking metaphors, but his perverse worldview is an acquired taste. Ballard fans won't be disappointed by his latest, which should also appeal to those who like the films of David Lynch. Joanne Wilkinson


From Kirkus Reviews
A bristling thriller pastiche from the surrealistic novelist (Rushing to Paradise, 1995, etc.) and peripatetic social observer (A User's Guide to the Millennium, 1996). Travel writer Charles Prentice, who seems to be carrying a lot of Ballard's baggage, is a man on a mission: to get his brother Frank out of a Costa del Sol prison. It won't be an easy job, since Frank, who managed the wildly successful Club Nautico, has already confessed to setting the fire that burned down the Hollinger home, with three family members and two hangers-on inside. Every question Charles asks the localsforeign nationals, most of them, who've come to regard the paradisiacal resort as much better than homemakes him more suspicious of Frank's confession. Where would Frank have gotten the mixture of petrol and ether that was used to start the fire, and how did he know how to introduce it into Hollinger's air-conditioning system? Why was Hollinger in bed with the pregnant Swedish maid, and his wife Alice the same with longtime secretary Roger Sansom, when the fire broke out? In fact, since an enormous party was clearly in progress at the time of the fire, why did no one in attendance make a move to rescue any of the victims? And if Frank wasn't responsible, why has he confessedand then refused to see the brother who's convinced he's innocent? Classic mystery questions, all, but knowing readers who can see that Ballard is less interested in solving the mystery than in using it as a parable of the modern social contract won't be surprised when Charles, instead of closing in on the solution, finds himself insensibly sliding into the comfy, doomed place his brother has vacated. For all Ballard's air of jaunty abstractionhis tawdry comdie humaine seems to be viewed through the wrong end of a telescopehis prophetic eye for the ties that bind is as sharp and unsparing as ever. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
J. G. Ballard once again reveals his visionary mastery in this warped tale of the unexpected The setting for Cocaine Nights is the Costa del Sol and the stylish resort of Estrella de Mar. Into the queasy beauty of this artificial environment steps Charles Prentice, a travel writer from London who has come to visit his brother Frank, manager of the resort's Club Nautico. Frank is in jail, having confessed to setting an explosive fire that has taken five lives. Certain that the confession was coerced, Charles launches his own investigation. As he allows himself to be drawn further into Estrella de Mar's dark underworld, this explosive novel accelerates toward a disturbing climax.


About the Author
J. G. Ballard's novels include the acclaimed Empire of the Sun, for which he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; Crash, recently adapted for film; and The Crystal World. His story collections include The Terminal Beach and The Atrocity Exhibition. He lives in England.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Cocaine Nights, the setting is the Costa del Sol, and the stylish resort of Estrella de Mar, where young retirees from Europe's chillier climes bask in a lifestyle of endless leisure. Into the queasy beauty of this artificial environment steps Charles Prentice, a travel writer from London who has come to visit his brother Frank, manager of the resort's Club Nautico - tennis and swim club by day, coked-up discotheque by night. Frank is in jail, having confessed to setting an explosive fire that has taken five lives. Certain that the confession was coerced, Charles wants to launch his own investigation. But Frank isn't interested in salvation, and the Spanish police don't want their open-and-shut case corrupted by a meddling Brit. Charles insists on continuing his crusade, though his life is threatened.

FROM THE CRITICS

Scott McLemee

There's a fine line, sometimes, between feeling tranquil and being tranquilized. Still, there is a difference. Tranquillity usually proves fragile and short-lived -- taking a Valium, or watching MTV for a few hours, creates a certain momentum of stupefaction, not so easily broken. J.G. Ballard's most recent novel is set in a resort enclave on the Mediterranean coast, populated by British and French expatriates who have made their money and retired while still young enough to enjoy themselves. Estrella de Mar offers its residents a utopia of leisure and comfort. But utopia is boring. Tranquillity has gotten out of hand.

Anyone familiar with Ballard's vision -- as it has taken shape, over the years, in a highly accomplished and often unnerving body of work, most of it in science fiction -- knows what to expect next. Psychic numbness and jaded tastes require extremes of stimulation. Sometimes it takes a good dose of barbarism just to get through the day. Cocaine Nights is not a sci-fi work; but as characters in the novel remark on a few occasions, Estrella de Mar offers a taste of what a "leisure-dominated future" might be like.

The narrator is Charles Prentice, a travel writer who has come to this "residential retreat for the professional classes of northern Europe" not to report on it, but to help his brother Frank, a nightclub manager the Spanish police have arrested in a case of arson that killed five people. Frank has confessed, but no one quite believes him. Charles investigates, hoping to clear his brother, and finds that Estrella de Mar had been a sleepy place until recently. It's undergone a kind of cultural renaissance: There are amateur productions of Harold Pinter plays, and people read Le Monde and the New York Review of Books between screenings of Hepburn-Tracy films at the local theater. There is also a little crime and seediness now, too. All of which appeared on the scene not long after the arrival of a charming tennis instructor, Bob Crawford.

If, at this point, you have deduced that Crawford set the fire -- well, not so fast. The novel gradually peels back layers of corruption and complicity; but this is not a detective story, exactly, and "guilt" is a fairly problematic concept in Ballard's universe. It does not give too much away, though, to note that the tennis pro is an amateur sociologist of a kind. Too much security yields cultural entropy. So Crawford figures that a bit of transgression (petty crime, random violence, some amateur pornography) is vital for the social ecology. As Charles' efforts to clear Frank bog down, he joins Crawford in applying this principle to a boring luxury resort nearby -- another little utopia of narcosis.

The experiment works. A little depravity really is the spice of life -- for perpetrator and for victim alike. "Someone shits in your pool, ransacks your bedroom and plays around with your wife's underwear," Crawford explains. "Now rage and anger aren't enough. You're forced to rethink yourself on every level, like a primitive man confronting a hostile universe behind every tree and rock. You're aware of time, chance, the resources of your own imagination ..."

This is not a moral vision in which the concept of innocence proves all that viable. And step by step, the plot closes in on the characters -- trapping everyone, the narrator included, in the remorseless logic of Ballard's thesis. It certainly disrupted my tranquil day. Time to go shit in the pool. -- Salon

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.

Kirkus Reviews

A bristling thriller pastiche from the surrealistic novelist (Rushing to Paradise, 1995, etc.) and peripatetic social observer (A User's Guide to the Millennium, 1996). Travel writer Charles Prentice, who seems to be carrying a lot of Ballard's baggage, is a man on a mission: to get his brother Frank out of a Costa del Sol prison. It won't be an easy job, since Frank, who managed the wildly successful Club Nautico, has already confessed to setting the fire that burned down the Hollinger home, with three family members and two hangers-on inside. Every question Charles asks the localsþforeign nationals, most of them, who've come to regard the paradisiacal resort as much better than homeþmakes him more suspicious of Frank's confession. Where would Frank have gotten the mixture of petrol and ether that was used to start the fire, and how did he know how to introduce it into Hollinger's air-conditioning system? Why was Hollinger in bed with the pregnant Swedish maid, and his wife Alice the same with longtime secretary Roger Sansom, when the fire broke out? In fact, since an enormous party was clearly in progress at the time of the fire, why did no one in attendance make a move to rescue any of the victims? And if Frank wasn't responsible, why has he confessed, and then refused to see the brother who's convinced he's innocent? Classic mystery questions, all, but knowing readers who can see that Ballard is less interested in solving the mystery than in using it as a parable of the modern social contract won't be surprised when Charles, instead of closing in on the solution, finds himself insensibly sliding into the comfy, doomed place his brother has vacated. Forall Ballard's air of jaunty abstraction, his tawdry com￯﾿ﾽdie humaine seems to be viewed through the wrong end of a telescope, his prophetic eye for the ties that bind is as sharp and unsparing as ever.