Tuesday, May 26, 2026

THE ILLUMINATED MAN: LIFE, DEATH AND THE WORLDS OF J. G. BALLARD by Christopher Priest and Nina Allan

Review by Abe Ziesing

Go to the biography section of a library or bookshop and you’ll find countless memoirs fitting a similar format, delving into the lives of their subjects.  This book is something else altogether.  Certainly, it covers the life story of its subject, J. G. Ballard biographically, but because of the circumstances of how this book came to be, it evolved into an intertwining of three brilliant writers’ lives and minds, a collective creation that is uniquely personal, insightful and moving.

Fans of Ballard will enjoy the many obscure anecdotes on his life and works, as well as the intellectual deep dives into specific works as explored and interpreted by Christopher Priest and Nina Allan.  Unfortunately, about halfway through writing this book, Priest fell victim to the same cruel cancer that claimed Ballard, and the writing baton had to be passed on to his equally capable widow, Nina Allan.  The two voices give this book an extraordinary quality of multiple intellectual viewpoints with insightful and differing first-hand experiences.

THE ILLUMINATED MAN can understandably feel a bit choppy and disjointed as it transitions between timeframes, book reviews, interviews and even authors, but this gives it a special quality that when contextualized against how it came to be, makes it feel all the more personal.  We are taken bake and forth through time, but these transitions always fluid and make sense to the na rative.

I learned a lot about J. G. Ballard in fun and moving reading experience, and that would’ve been enough, but the quality of writing maintained throughout in extenuating circumstances makes this book truly exceptional.