BEACH (P)

The Khao San Road, Bangkok--first stop for the hordes of rootless youngWesterners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budgetguest house, a fellow traveler slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulouslydrawn map to "the Beach." The Beach, as Richard has come to learn, is the subject of a legend among youngtravelers 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 isrumored, 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 haveidentified the dead man--and his own obsession with Vietnam movies, Richard sets offwith a young French couple to an island hidden away in an archipelago forbidden totourists. 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, evendeadly, undercurrents. Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach is a look at a generation intheir twenties, who, burdened with the legacy of the preceding generation and saturated bypopular culture, long for an unruined landscape, but find it difficult to experience theworld firsthand.Garland, Alex is the author of 'BEACH (P)' with ISBN 9781573227971 and ISBN 1573227978.