false 608287 13 The unnamed narrator in <I>Jesus' Son</I> lives through a car wreck and a heroin overdose. Is he blessed? He cheats, lies, steals--but possesses a child's (or a mystic's) uncanny way of expressing the bare essence of things around him. In its own strange and luminous way, this linked collection of short fiction does the same. The stories follow characters who are seemingly marginalized beyond hope, drifting through a narcotic haze of ennui, failed relationships, and petty crime. In "Dundun" the narrator decides to take a shooting victim to the hospital, though not for the usual reasons: "I wanted to be the one who saw it through and got McInnes to the doctor without a wreck. People would talk about it, and I hoped I would be liked." Later he takes his own pathetic stab at violence in "The Other Man," attempting to avenge a drug rip-off but succeeding only at terrorizing an innocent family. Each meandering story--some utterly lacking in the usual elements of plot, including a beginning and an end--nonetheless demands compulsive reading, with Denis Johnson's first calling as a poet apparent in the off-kilter beauty of his prose. Open to any page and gems spill forth: "I knew every raindrop by its name. I sensed everything before it happened. I knew a certain Oldsmobile would stop for me even before it slowed, and by the sweet voices of the family inside that we'd have an accident in the storm." The most successful stories in the collection offer moments of startling clarity. In "Car Crash While Hitchhiking," for instance, the narrator feels most alive while in the presence of another's loss: "Down the hall came the wife. She was glorious, burning. She didn't know yet that her husband was dead.... What a pair of lungs! She shrieked as I imagined an eagle would shriek. It felt wonderful to be alive to hear it! I've gone looking for that feeling everywhere." In "Work," while "salvaging" copper wire from a flooded house to fund their habits, the narrator and an acquaintance stop to watch the nearly unfathomable sight of a beautiful, naked woman paragliding up the river. Later the narrator learns that the house once belonged to his down-and-out accomplice and that the woman is his estranged wife. "As nearly as I could tell, I'd wandered into some sort of dream that Wayne was having about his wife, and his house," he reasons. Such is the experience for the reader. More Genet than Bukowski, Denis Johnson lures us into a misfit soul's dream from which he can't awake. <I>--Langdon Cook</I> Contains: <i>Car Crash While Hitchhiking Two Men Out on Bail Dundun Work Emergency Dirty Wedding The Other Man Happy Hour Steady Hands at Seattle General Beverly Home</i> 1033961 book 1992 Jesus' Son: Stories total:4088|5:1918|4:1423|3:572|2:134|1:40| 4088 17311 5236 507 1 13 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1994 Wed Dec 05 19:25:03 -0800 2007 Wed Dec 05 19:25:03 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 18 false false Wed Aug 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 24 18:33:46 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 27 15:00:04 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 5 false false Sat Jul 05 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 05 23:53:31 -0700 2008 Sun Jul 06 00:04:20 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 3 false false Sat May 31 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat May 31 19:34:07 -0700 2008 Sat May 31 21:04:55 -0700 2008
i hadn't read tree of smoke or anything by denis johnson, and (honestly?) ha...more...]]> 2 4 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 20 18:08:45 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 27 08:29:36 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 3 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Thu Jul 19 20:12:52 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 01 09:13:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 3 false false Sat Mar 15 09:59:58 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 15 10:15:12 -0700 2008 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...more...]]> 4 3 false false Tue Apr 29 07:49:55 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 01 17:04:23 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed May 14 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jan 06 11:45:32 -0800 2008 Sun May 18 18:05:37 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Jan 05 09:20:09 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 05 09:30:40 -0800 2008

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....more...]]> 1 1 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Thu Nov 15 14:28:36 -0800 2007 Wed Apr 23 19:17:57 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Sat Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sat Sep 08 08:21:46 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 08 08:46:59 -0700 2007
Far from being downbeat or crazy, th...more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Apr 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 12 12:20:34 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 21 20:23:36 -0700 2009 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 ...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 06 09:47:17 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 08 10:08:29 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Aug 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 22 17:20:55 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 22 17:32:42 -0700 2008 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 ha...more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Aug 22 18:43:53 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 22 18:51:41 -0700 2007

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 t...more...]]> 5 2 false false Mon Dec 31 09:21:50 -0800 2007 Tue Jun 17 16:30:08 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Tue Sep 25 15:31:34 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 25 15:39:55 -0700 2007
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 fr...more...]]> 5 3 false false Tue Apr 24 10:29:14 -0700 2007 Tue May 29 16:29:50 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Wed Jan 07 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 15:45:17 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 07 13:36:10 -0800 2009