The irresistible novel that was adapted into a major motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The Khao San Road, Bangkok—first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveller slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach." The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among young travellers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumoured, a carefully selected international few have settled in a communal Eden. Haunted by the figure of Mr. Duck—the name by which the Thai police have identified the dead man—and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets off with a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden to tourists. They discover the Beach, and it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is reputed to be. Yet over time it becomes clear that Beach culture, as Richard calls it, has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents. Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland—both a national bestseller and his debut—is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated by popular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience the world first hand.
Author
Alex Garland (born 1970) is a British novelist, screenwriter, and director. Garland is the son of political cartoonist Nick (Nicholas) Garland. He attended the independent University College School, in Hampstead, London, and the University of Manchester, where he studied art history. His first novel, The Beach, was published in 1996 and drew on his experiences as a backpacker. The novel quickly became a cult classic and was made into a film by Danny Boyle, with Leonardo DiCaprio. The Tesseract, Garland's second novel, was published in 1998. This was also made into a film, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. In 2003, he wrote the screenplay for Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, starring Cillian Murphy. His third novel, The Coma, was published in 2004 and was illustrated with woodcuts by his father. In 2007 he wrote the screenplay for the film Sunshine—his second screenplay to be directed by Danny Boyle and star Cillian Murphy as lead. Garland also served as an executive producer on 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later. Garland also wrote the first screenplay for Halo, the film adaptation of the successful video game franchise by Bungie Studios. He made his directorial debut with Ex Machina, a 2014 feature film based on his own story and screenplay. His partner is actress/director Paloma Baeza.
