Kevin's review
Jesus' Son: Stories by Denis Johnson
I liked Tree of Smoke so I picked up this much-praised collection of short stories. It's a quick read and - unlike Tree of Smoke - it's perfect for reading in 20 minute doses on the train or bus.
Also unlike Tree of Smoke, with its complicated skien of characters, the stories in Jesus' Son revolve around a single narrator and are linked by shared themes of drug and alcohol use/abuse, and Midwestern small-town boredom, longing, and desperation. Don't let that dissuade you, though. Johnson doesn't imbue his characters' bleary-eyed struggle to escape from boredom with higher purpose or deeper meaning. What's on offer is depressing and chaotic and unpredictable and unimportant, and for the characters it's just life.
As such, the stories take place in dive bars and dead end jobs and pick up trucks and other unremarkable settings. But rather than fill these scenes with significance that just doesn't exist (the way most books about drugs and booze do), Johnson interrupts the hopelessne...more
Also unlike Tree of Smoke, with its complicated skien of characters, the stories in Jesus' Son revolve around a single narrator and are linked by shared themes of drug and alcohol use/abuse, and Midwestern small-town boredom, longing, and desperation. Don't let that dissuade you, though. Johnson doesn't imbue his characters' bleary-eyed struggle to escape from boredom with higher purpose or deeper meaning. What's on offer is depressing and chaotic and unpredictable and unimportant, and for the characters it's just life.
As such, the stories take place in dive bars and dead end jobs and pick up trucks and other unremarkable settings. But rather than fill these scenes with significance that just doesn't exist (the way most books about drugs and booze do), Johnson interrupts the hopelessne...more
