Name: Concrete Island
ISBN: 9780007321582

J. G. Ballard

A chilling novel about our modern world, from the author of Empire of the Sun and Crash.

Concrete Island

Gary Homewood

Short, near-perfect Ballard, reworking his typical themes. Auto-fixated, the thin line between civiliastion and atavism. Cruel, shocking and vividly plausible.

A chilling novel that pays twisted homage to Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe'.

Robert Maitland, a 35 year-old architect, is driving home from his London offices when a blow-out sends his speeding Jaguar hurtling out of control. Smashing through a temporary barrier he finds himself, dazed and disorientated, on a traffic island below three converging motorways. But when he tries to climb the embankment or flag-down a passing car for help it proves impossible - and he finds himself imprisoned on the concrete island. Maitland must survive using only what he can find in his crashed car.


As in all Ballard's best work 'Concrete Island' provides an unnerving study of our modern lives and world. With his alienating, 'Ballardian' view of normal events, this is a unique novel from one of the twentieth century's finest writers.