Crash

Crash is a 1973 novel by English author J.G. Ballard. The story revolves around the phenomenon known as symphorophilia, and more specifically, car-crash sexual fetishism.

Told through the eyes of James Ballard, a young man who, after being involved in a car crash, finds a friend in another man who is obsessed with accidents of this type. Ballard starts to idolize the man as he participates in his hobby, following him from one car crash to the next. Ballard becomes obsessed himself, as the effects of his own accident bleed into every aspect of his life, from his relationship with his wife to his pursuit of extramarital affairs. Ballard becomes very introspective, coming to terms with the concept of his own mortality and his desire to feel alive in the way he did after surviving the car crash. As the behavior of his new friend escalates at an alarming rate, Ballard pushes his own boundaries and continues to tag along for the ride.

The novel opens on Ballard as he arrives at the scene of a car crash at an airport in London. The cause of the crash was a man driving his car over the edge of a flyover and into a bus passing below. Ballard knows that the accident was caused with the intent to harm the young actor who was in the car ahead of the bus. She is now standing by the scene of the accident, watching the emergency vehicles arrive and tend to the injured passengers.



The driver of the car is Dr. Robert Vaughan, an acquaintance of Ballard’s who had planned to die that day, taking famed actor Elizabeth Taylor with him. Ballard and Vaughan had met several months before after Ballard experienced a car crash of his own. Ballard was driving home after an encounter with his mistress when he lost control of his car and ended up driving the wrong way up a ramp into oncoming traffic. Managing to swerve, Ballard narrowly misses the first two cars that come his way, but he cannot avoid the third, driven by a woman and her husband; the man does not survive.

After the accident, Ballard spends several days recuperating in the hospital. He discovers that his wife, normally aloof and disinterested, is now paying him more attention than ever before. Ballard returns home with his wife after being released from the hospital. He becomes preoccupied with the role of cars and roads in the city, and how driving is now such a deeply ingrained aspect of human life. Ballard formulates a theory that all of humanity is destined to die in one big car accident.

With this in mind, Ballard returns to work, taking advantage of every opportunity to rent a car that the studio provides him. He drives obsessively, always on the lookout for a potential accident in the making, and makes many trips to the scene where is own accident occurred. Ballard obsessively thinks about the widow who survived the car crash along with him. The two meet again following an inquest investigating the accident, and they become involved in an affair. Ballard soon realizes that he and his new lover, Helen Remington, have only ever been intimate in his car. This further encourages Ballard’s theory that they are tied by the tragedy of the accident and that it is the memory of that moment and the car itself that excites and arouses them.



Ballard notices a strange man hanging around Helen; he spots him every time they go out. One night, Ballard takes Helen to a stock car show where a stunt driver re-enacts a car accident. At the show, they run into the strange man whom Ballard learns is Dr. Robert Vaughan, a television personality who has become obsessed with car crashes. Helen and Ballard accompany Vaughan as he takes the stunt man to the hospital, and later they all go together to the stunt man’s home. Here, Vaughan shows Ballard a photo album he has created filled with pictures of victims of car accidents. Ballard spots a photo of himself from the scene of his own accident.

Vaughan and Ballard bond over their shared fascination with car crashes, and they start to spend more time together. Helen invites the two of them to watch a staged car crash. After Ballard notices Vaughan’s sexual reaction to witnessing the crash, he develops an attraction to the man. Vaughan and Ballard spend their days together, scouting for car accidents, Vaughan photographing the scenes while Ballard drives. They also pick up women together and Vaughan makes love to them in the back seat while Ballard drives.

After visiting Ballard at work on a film set, Vaughan spots Elizabeth Taylor, who is playing the role of the victim of a car crash. Vaughan fantasizes about a car crash in which he and Elizabeth Taylor die together. Ballard realizes there is something very off about Vaughan, who starts stalking Ballard and his wife, attempting to incite a car crash.



Finally, Vaughan steals Ballard’s car and drives it off a flyover at the airport, killing himself when he crashes into a bus full of airline passengers rather than the limo carrying Elizabeth Taylor that he was aiming for.