The Coma

Alex Garland

Jul 2005 · Sold by Penguin

4.4

5 reviews

Ebook

208

Pages

Eligible

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About this ebook

When Carl awakens from a coma after being attacked on a subway train, life around him feels unfamiliar, even strange. He arrives at his best friend's house without remembering how he got there; he seems to be having an affair with his secretary, which is pleasant but surprising. He starts to notice distortions in his experience, strange leaps in his perception of time. Is he truly reacting with the outside world, he wonders, or might he be terribly mistaken? So begins a dark psychological drama that raises questions about the the human psyche, dream versus reality, and the boundaries of consciousness. As Carl grapples with his predicament, Alex Garland - author of The Beach and the screenplay for 28 Days Later, plays with conventions and questions our assumptions about the way we exist in the world, even as it draws us into the unsettling and haunting book about a lost suitcase and a forgotten identity.

Ratings and reviews

4.4

5 reviews

Lucie S

November 29, 2018

Love it. Like all Garland's books.

21 people found this review helpful

Elsa Williams

May 19, 2014

The best book I've ever read. Can read it again and again.

13 people found this review helpful

About the author

Alex Garland is the author of the bestselling generational classic The Beach 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. He lives in London.

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