SOURCE: Brigg, Peter. “The Atrocity Exhibition (1970) (Love and Napalm: Export U.S.A.—American Title).” In J. G. Ballard, pp. 56-66. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House Inc., 1985.

In the following essay, Brigg offers a stylistic and thematic examination of The Atrocity Exhibition.

The Atrocity Exhibition is Ballard's most ambitious extended experiment in the techniques of fiction and is a watershed in the development of his work, summing up much of what has gone before and opening the way to much of what is to follow. It is a technically complex book, but its effects are directly arresting and disturbing to the reader. It is also a fiercely difficult book to describe and discuss because of its lack of clear narrative line, its unusual mixture of fiction and contemporary reality, and, above all, the cumulative effect of its atmosphere, which cannot be transmitted in brief quotations.

Ballard himself has...