"A book that moves with the kind of speed and grace many older writers can only day-dream about.The Beachis ambitious, propulsive fiction."--The Washington Post What makesThe Beacha truly awesome piece of work is Garland s understated, assured depiction of the perils of pop."--The Village Voice The Beachwill astonish readers...Not since reading Donna Tartt s The Secret Historyhas this reader been so impressed and taken with a first novel. --USA Today The Beachis an awesome first novel that works as an adventure story, an allegory and an explanation for why every human since Adam and Eve has an irresistible impulse to create a perfect world and destroy it. A wonderful adventure and allegory that may be the best novel written by anyone currently younger than 30. --Sunday Oregonian Alex Garland... has a clear, engaging storytelling style and a vivid imagination. Deftly, he uses real-life travel details--smells, optical effects, quirks of language, social rituals--to keep the reader s disbelief at bay. --The New York Times Book Review Remarkable.... astonishingly assured....The Beachis distinguished by Garland s bracingly transparent prose and tells a classic story of generational envy and displacement. Aluminous voyage into the dark side of humanity s increasingly tenuous dreams of paradise. --Salon Generation X meetsLord of the Fliesin this ripping good adventure yarn...Garland shows a precociously sure hand in this taut, exotic thriller. For a young author, he knows too well the peril of finding paradise on earth...a skillful first novel about the demise of an earthly paradise. --People [G]ripping, intelligent and written with a discipline many young writers only grow into."--New York Newsday The Beachmakes for a relevant and fascinating read....an excellent critique of the backpacker phenomenon--its nouveau colonialism and its tragically misdirected idealism. --Time Out Garland s provocative style--somewhere between Joseph Conrad, Bret Easton Ellis, and Stephen King--creates a modern-day Eden where Nintendo Game-boy, "Apocalypse Now," and a drug-trafficking Thai militia blend seamlessly into the landscape. --Vogue "

Alex Garland is the author of the bestselling generational classic The Beach(which was adapted into a major motion pictures starring Leonardo DiCaprio) and of The Tesseract, a national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book. He also wrote the original screenplay of the critically acclaimed film 28 Days Later."