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''Cocaine Nights'' is a 1996 novel by
J. G. Ballard James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass med ...
. Like '' Super-Cannes'' that followed it, it deals with the idea of
dystopian A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...
resort communities which maintain their seemingly perfect balance via a number of dark secrets.


Plot summary

The story's protagonist, Charles Prentice, ventures to Estrella de Mar in order to rescue his jailed brother, Frank who has been arrested for instigating an arson attack which killed 5 people. Upon arriving and talking with his sibling, Charles finds to his horror that his brother has confessed to everything, and has no interest in trying to escape his plea. In a matter of days, Charles becomes immersed in the strange world of Estrella de Mar, learning more of its dark secrets, and spending less time worrying about his brother. Constantly being manipulated while he thinks he is finding the truth, Charles soon finds himself out of control and at the nexus of certain disaster, at which point he finally begins to understand just what happened to his brother.


References


External links


The Terminal Collection: JG Ballard Book Cover Scans 1990 - 1999
1996 British novels Flamingo books Novels by J. G. Ballard Novels set in Spain {{1990s-sf-novel-stub