In High-Rise (1975), Ballard continues his descriptive investigations of the latent effects of modern technology on the human mind and civilization's attempts to suppress the energies of the unconscious. The disaster synopsis of the novel involves this time the inhabitants of the ‘vertical city’ (HR 9), a forty-storey high-rise block, who gradually lose contact with the civilized world and revert to the latent primitive violence of the urban jungle. The opening paragraph of the novel indicates a return to the caustic, Beckettian humour and absurdist logic to be found in some of Ballard's early short stories, such as ‘Mr. F. is Mr. F.’ and ‘Time of Passage’:

High-Rise also differs from Ballard's previous concrete-andsteel stories in its use of a third-person narrative exploring a growing sense of isolation and alienation in the minds of three different characters. The first one, Dr Robert Laing, is a recently divorced senior lecturer at a nearby medical school who has sold his former house and moved to an apartment located on the twenty-fifth floor of the high-rise complex, which he has chosen ‘specifically for its peace, quiet and anonymity’ (HR 7). The second major character, a restless and promiscuous television producer named (rather appropriately) Richard Wilder, lives with his wife and two sons on the second floor of the building. At the beginning of the story, Wilder is working on a television documentary about the psychological risks of living in high-rise condominiums. The third figure of importance is the architect Anthony Royal, who was a member of the consortium which designed the high-rise. Royal, who is recovering from a recent car crash, occupies a penthouse apartment in the building.