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Oct 17, 2011

Nancy rated it:

I wasn’t sure if I would like this collection of loosely connected stories about a young guy who is addicted to drugs, sometimes homeless, sometimes employed, and occasionally steals. He’s not an especially likable character, but I enjoyed being a part of his thoughts, his views, and his haphazard journey through life. Maybe it's because I have empathy for addicts and others who live on the edge.

This powerful and gripping collection of stories was troubling, intense, and humane. I More...

11 comments like (21 people liked it)

Aug 27, 2008

Ellen rated it:

I once fell in love with a man just because he recommended this book to me. He had a glass eye and fingernails with with half moons of crust lodged underneath, thick and dark as coffee grounds. He was living covertly and temporarily for about four years in one of those storage units out by the interstate, and I would sometimes go see him when I wanted to get high or feel better about my life. At some point he died when they blew up a bridge to build a dam, and he happened to be sleeping under More...

2 comments like (34 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jonathan rated it:

Look, I don't know how else to put this. I recognize what Johnson's accomplished here, I acknowledge that he has a gift for phrase-level shine, and I concede that these semi-linked stories evince a remarkably coherent and vividly-depicted worldview that I might call "hopelessly optimistic," or maybe "tending to carry on when there's clearly no good reason to do so," or else, more succinctly, "Conradian" . . . but, I'm sorry, what I couldn't help but think/feel, wadi More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jul 06, 2008

Imogen rated it:

I lost my phone charger, which meant I couldn't talk to the other people in my band about whether we were having band practice. I assumed we were going to, though, because we skipped the last two and we have a show on Wednesday. And we ALWAYS practice on Saturdays, right? So I lugged my guitar- usually it lives in the practice space, but I accidentally left it in Bex's trunk after we played the San Francisco Trans March ("This song is dedicated to everyone who throws around the word 'tranny More...

1 comment like (6 people liked it)

May 31, 2008

Rifftrafft rated it:

what can i say, there was another graduation today. the service was in this catholic church. i brought the pain, i.e. pulled a method man. given the book title, i feel like people were a little less judgemental.

i hadn't read tree of smoke or anything by denis johnson, and (honestly?) have enjoyed publicly confusing him with dennis cooper, another impossibly cool/edgy/drugs/dicks&pussies writer type liked by all the wrong people. i'll get around to cooper soon and regret that last se More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 01, 2009

Malbadeen rated it:

I don't usually care for books/stories/movies where drugs are the main topic of conversation but these characters' drug habbits were entirely secondary to their familiarity. There were so many underlinable moments that could've been missed because of the fast/easy pacing. At first I thought "Work" was going to be my favorite but I'm pretty sure "Beverly Home" takes up that spot in the end. Maybe after I pause to catch my breath I'll consider this 4 stars but right now I feel More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Alexis rated it:

I saw the movie first-(great performances by Jack Black, Samantha Morton, Dennis Hopper)--and I have to say this is one of those rare times where one doesn't ruin the other. I reccomend both. I acutally think they accompany eachother nicely because as a novella, its hard to see where the stories converge, whereas watching a film is naturally a more linear process. Anyways--very well written, pretty meaningful, and def. has staying power in my memory. "He'd wasted his entire life. Such More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 15, 2008

Brent rated it:

This book ruined my reading bone for a long time. I wanted every story I read, every story by every other author, to be just like the stories in Jesus' Son. But of course they weren't and aren't and they stand alone in my mind, even now. Perhaps it's the whiskey talking, but I'd go so far as to call this little book one of the greatest of my generation. Not that such superlatives carry any weight anymore. I just can't get over this book. It was my first true love.

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Terry rated it:

Denis Johnson was a bad alcoholic, druggie, and petty thief back in the day. These stories are from that time. Nowadays you almost have to state: I don't advocate the lifestyle. But the stories affected me like nothing since 9 Stories by Salinger.

Far from being downbeat or crazy, the stories are luminous, made of fine crystal, with sentences that burn: "Down the hall she came. She didn't know yet that her husband was dead. We knew. That's what gave her such power over us. More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

The Fennec rated it:

Some of the most frenetic and unusual short stories that I have ever had the pleasure to read. So many moments that stick in my mind. Johnson is largely considered a writer's writer, but those who enjoy semi-experimental writing and a unique voice will likely appreciate it as well.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

R. rated it:

The novelization of the Mountain Goats album We Shall All Be Healed. Or We Shall All Be Healed is actually Jesus' Son: The Musical!. Either way.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 01, 2008

John rated it:

Although each of the short stories in this collection follow the experiences and (mis)deeds of a raging drug addict, all is not dreary, bleary-eyed drug-induced trauma; there is a lightness and quickness beneath these stories. There is even a dry, deadpan wit at times, like in this passage from “Emergency” where a sheepish doctor with an inferiority complex has been summoned to the emergency room to attend to the victim of a bizarre stabbing:

“He peeked into the trauma room and saw t More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 18, 2008

Christy rated it:

This book of short stories combines a lovely, poetic, dreamlike quality with the utter loneliness of addiction (of existence?). Peopled by drug addicts and criminals, the stories also remind me of Burroughs and Bukowski, but with the possibility of redemption. The nameless narrator--presumably the "Jesus' son" named in the collection's title--seems to be writing a series of recollections about his sinful past from the vantage point of recovery. The episodes all show how the narrator More...

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Jan 05, 2008

Daniel rated it:

“Jesus’ Son” by Denis Johnson (1992)

You’ve eaten a bottle of amphetamines.
You’ve also drunk bourbon and smoked hashish in the span of a few hours, and your hitchhiking luck has run out. It’s raining, but you lie down by the exit ramp on the interstate to go to sleep. You see, you don’t care whether you live or die.
This is where Denis Johnson begins his first story in his lyrically depressive collection, Jesus’ Son: his drug-addled narrator rising up from sleeping in a d More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 23, 2008

John rated it:

I wouldn’t dislike this book so much if professors and literati hadn’t rubbed it in my face so much. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't entertaining, enlightening, intellectually arousing, and it didn't harbor any interesting characters or compelling scenes despite dealing with drugs, physical handicaps and multiple deaths. The narrator was far too pretentious with far too little beautiful writing or insight to pull it off. I was mostly bored or depressed, and occasionally outraged and how poorly wr More...

8 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 21, 2009

Sabra rated it:

I loved Jesus' Son so much after finishing it, I wanted go back to the beginning of it and read it again after the last sentence. The book had the power to make me feel like every terrible thing I'd run into in my life (and tried to run away from) was actually kind of beautiful--in the unique sense of what builds a person's character. JS brought peace to old ghosts clanking chains for attention, ignored for years. It demonstrated how books can be therapeutic within a great author's illustrations More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 08, 2008

Dustin rated it:

If I had read this book five or six years ago, it would have changed my life. Unfortunately, I didn't, I read it now, and while it probably won't change my life, it has certainly added something to it: something about surreal beauty and tragedy and sublime loneliness. I feel like this is the book every writing workshop student wants to write--you know the one, that modern opus, that distillation of contemporary life into an unrecognizable series of details and actions that rings so true that you More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2008

Alex rated it:

I had high expectation for this one; a bunch of writers have cited it as a primary influence, and I thought Tree of Smoke was pretty good. And Jesus' Son certainly had its moments. Johnson can be a beautiful writer. But overall, the stories felt loose and flappy.

Some of this probably has to do with subject matter. Writing about drug heads doesn't require that any of their motivations or sentiments actually "make sense" and, while this has a certain liberating effect on th More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2007

AJ rated it:

i'm back, fuckers.

I read this on my 22 state excursion. I'm so tired right now that i'm in danger of getting a concussion from my head landing rather suddenly on the counter, so this might be a bit on the lackluster side. But anyway.

I did like this book, really, but I think it came at the wrong time or something. It was well written, I enjoyed it, but at the same time, I feel like i've read it before. Bukowski, Kerouac, Wolfe, etc etc. I feel like the bitter, drug-r More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 17, 2008

Ben rated it:

No book has been picked up more times by me then Jesus' Son. For those who relish Johnson's depiction of people, dirty deranged addicted people's meanderings through life and other states of being, this collection of short stories is to me a condensed booster of shorts which drop my jaw and make me wonder at the beauty with which he delivers. Each in their own right stand up as independent stories, though they all have a common main character, a young man, whom I assume embodies Johnson. It’s ve More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 25, 2007

Matt rated it:

Probably the best book I ever read.

I went to see Denis Johnson give a talk maybe a year after I'd read it. There was a Q&A, and someone asked if there was anything, other than lived experience, that he drew on for inspiration. And he said (paraphrasing), "you know the guitar solo from Sympathy for the Devil?"

That's when I decided this was my favorite book ever. He then went on to say, "When I write, I try to reproduce that same energy, that biting tone, tha More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 07, 2009

Eber rated it:

junkie business and drunken bummery... i think he is a good writer.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 04, 2012

Jason rated it:

Let me be frank. This is a collection that has received a lot of press. It was massively important twenty years ago and it is still important today. I don't need to summarize what's going on for you. What I do need to say is that these stories pack a whallup. They hurt. They move through time like a blackout, the characters cutting through space and days in a way that is sometimes difficult to adjust to, but ultimately feels completely natural. There is no bottom to the depths that a person can More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 04, 2011

Jim rated it:

I realize that reviewing Jesus' Son after the hundreds already here is more talking to myself than anything else, with little chance of my saying anything new. But what strikes me is where this volume lies along the history of fiction in which alcoholism or drug addiction is central. There are Steinbeck's romantic Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row, Kerouac and Burroughs and Tom Wolfe and McCarthy. So we know the tropes. But what's different here is the sense that its characters are stand-ins for th More...

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Dec 02, 2011

Ali rated it:

3.2 or 3, tentatively.
I am currently sitting in my dark and dreary bedroom, wearing sixteen bulletproof vests, preparing for the onslaught of h8 and rage and gunshots which will accompany my review of this book. Here goes:
I understand what Johnson is trying to do here, how he's trying to tell us that, even when there's no reason to go on, when you've hit rock bottom, people still do, through drug addiction and death, and I will acknowledge that the guy can write. But that's about it. More...

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Nov 15, 2011

Sarah rated it:

I have often been reminded not to judge a book by its cover, or in the case of this book, by its title. Jesus’ Son was not at all what I expected it to be, but I was certainly not disappointed. The title of this collection of short stories, centered on an unnamed narrator, comes from a lyric of the song “Heroin” by Lou Reed, which is placed at the beginning of the book and says, “When I’m rushing on my run/And I feel just like Jesus’ Son…”. Because the stories are so vaguely connected, I strongl More...

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Nov 10, 2011

Roland rated it:

I’d been meaning to read Jesus’ Son for years. I read DJ’s Fiskadaro not long ago, and while I respected the work, it wasn’t really the type of story I enjoy. Jesus’ Son sounded more up my alley.

The collection contains stories told by an unnamed narrator who ‘s generally in seedy bars or running around in undesirable company looking to score drugs. When he’s working, his jobs are generally of the low-level variety in county hospitals where he can pilfer from patient doses. There were More...

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Sep 06, 2011

Don rated it:

Jesus' Son is a rough collection of short stories that revolve around the life of a drug addict. The protagonist --or Fuckhead, as he is endearingly referred to in the novella, makes a slow heroes journey from addict, to eventually being human again.

The stories themselves are often in no particular order; little information is given on how much time passes between events. This combined with simple paragraph structure and quick-pacing make this book an easy read. However, it should b More...

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Jun 21, 2011

Bill rated it:

Well, this book is way highly acclaimed. Go!

+ I got the book because I saw a couple of authors reference it as really good.
+ More than 5,000 people on goodreads reviewed it with an average 4+ rating (out of 5).
+ As the back of the book says, it has earned a place "among the classics of twentieth century literature".

I read through some of the goodreads reviews that people wrote, and they are effusive about the book, reading it over and over again. Another More...

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Feb 15, 2011

Patrick rated it:

Denis Johnson’s collection of short stories Jesus’ Son is a grouping of stories that portray the lifestyle of hopeless addicts and desperate criminals in many different lights. This book has drilled its way into the position of being one of my favorite novels of all time. While some readers would be alarmed and somewhat appalled at some of the imagery in these stories, I find that it was refreshingly honest.

Although the different stories in the book aren’t connected through the stor More...

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