
Death Drive
There Are No Accidents
Stephen Bayley(Author)
Circa Press
Published on 17. September 2018
Book
Hardback
232 pages
978-1-911422-22-8 (ISBN)
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Description
Cars have a talismanic quality. No other manufactured object has the same disturbing allure. More emotions are involved in cars than any other product: vanity, cupidity, greed, social competitiveness, cultural modelling. But when all this perverse promise ends in catastrophe, these same talismanic qualities acquire an extra dimension. The car crash is a defining phenomenon of popular culture. Death Drive is both an appreciative essay about the historic place of the automobile in the modern imagination and an exploration of the circumstances surrounding multiple celebrity denouements, including Isadora Duncan, Jane Mansfield, James Dean, Jackson Pollack, Princess Grace, and Helmut Newton, among many others. En route the narrative traces one very big arc - the role of the car in extending or creating the personality of a celebrity - and concludes by confronting the imminent death of the car itself.
Stephen Bayley recounts delightfully grotesque tales about celebrities done in by trees, by lampposts, or by nonentities in ancient Chevys. A design masterpiece, this book combines exquisite prose with stylish presentation - the cars are described more lovingly than the people who perished in them. Death Drive a compendium of stories about famous people killed stupidly in cars oozes absurdity. Stephen Bayley recounts delightfully grotesque tales about celebrities done in by trees, by lampposts, or by nonentities in ancient Chevys. A design masterpiece, this book combines exquisite prose with stylish presentation the cars are described more lovingly than the people who perished in them. Like a Bugatti, Death Drive recalls a time when books and cars were beautiful. The Times, Books of the Year, 26 November 2016
Stephen Bayley recounts delightfully grotesque tales about celebrities done in by trees, by lampposts, or by nonentities in ancient Chevys. A design masterpiece, this book combines exquisite prose with stylish presentation - the cars are described more lovingly than the people who perished in them. Death Drive a compendium of stories about famous people killed stupidly in cars oozes absurdity. Stephen Bayley recounts delightfully grotesque tales about celebrities done in by trees, by lampposts, or by nonentities in ancient Chevys. A design masterpiece, this book combines exquisite prose with stylish presentation the cars are described more lovingly than the people who perished in them. Like a Bugatti, Death Drive recalls a time when books and cars were beautiful. The Times, Books of the Year, 26 November 2016
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
72 Illustrations, color
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 160 mm
Weight
740 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-911422-22-8 (9781911422228)
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Schweitzer Classification
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Book
03/2026
2nd Edition
Circa Press
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Person
Stephen Bayley is an author, critic, columnist, consultant, broadcaster, curator and founding director of the influential Design Museum. Over the past thirty years his writing has changed the way the world thinks about design.