J.G. Ballard:
The Atrocity Exhibition
Going into free association with this one. I've always been intrigued by the early Ballardian-inspired lyrics of artists like John Foxx and it's another one that has a title that begs to be read (and have songs based on it: Joy Division, q.v.).
I wouldn't call it a novel in the linear sense; more a loosely connected series of vignettes. There are common touchstones, though: Elizabeth Taylor, JFK, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Albert Camus
et al. Surrealist artists are represented by Max Ernst; with reference to works including
Europe After the Rain and
The Eye of Silence and Dali with
The Persistence of Memory.
It is quite disturbing; sex, death, car crashes, underpasses, overpassses, and architecture, amongst more. I'm not sure whether it's the innermost workings of a protagonist under mental breakdown or a critique of mass media and associated voyeurism (to add to the confusion, the main protagonist changes surname in each chapter). I'm only part-way through, however.
Ballard himself suggested that one way to approach it is to choose pages at random and read paragraphs that picque the interest. Very post-structuralist (death of the author, and all that); but that, allegedly, is the way he compiled the book. This edition has annotations by Ballard at the end of each chapter; to offer background and context.