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Overview
Overview
An intense collection of interconnected stories that portray life through the eyes of a young man in a small Iowa town, by the author of "Already Dead: A California Gothic," "Angels" and "Resuscitation of a Hanged Man."
- Format: TradePaperback
- Author: Johnson, Denis
- ISBN: 9780312428747
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 8.26 x 0.39
- Number Of Pages: 144
- Publication Year: 2009
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I Knew Every Raindrop By Its Name
Alexander H. - 1 year 3 months agoHave you ever read a book so fast you felt bad for reading it so fast? I did this with Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son a few years ago. I felt so bad that I read it again in the same sitting. It's not too long-about 140 pages. It goes fast. It's some of the best writing I've ever read. If you want to read some of the best short stories in the last 25 years, you need to pick this up. It should be taught in every fiction class across the country. I keep this book in my bag wherever I go. Denis Johnson was a poet before writing fiction, and you can tell. In the first story, "Car Crash While Hitchhiking," (one of the best constructed short stories ever) the narrator says: "The traveling salesman had fed me pills that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out. My jaw ached. I knew every raindrop by its name. I sensed everything before it happened." I think about that raindrop line all the time. And this description appears on the second page of the book. The second page. I think that's insane. You know you are in the hands of a master. The collection was published in 1992 but feels timeless. It tells the story of one character (some argue there are multiple characters) who deals with vagrants and ne'er-do-wells across parts of a nameless rural America. Jesus' Son is hallucinatory, break-neck, chaotic, beautiful. It's for readers who appreciate the gritty aspect of crime fiction alongside the beauty of literary fiction. It's for readers who get pleasure from reading sentences aloud to themselves because they're so good. It's for readers who want to be surrounded by a terrifying beauty that will force you to think about it long after it's gone.
HPB Staff Review -
Will change the way you look at contemporary American "lowlife" fiction.
Jordan G. - 2 years 6 months agoThe late Denis Johnson's career was marked by a number of literary achievements. Some of which include 'Tree of Smoke' the 2007 National Book Award winner for Fiction; and 'Train Dreams' which was part of a 3 book stalemate that resulted in no Pulitzer Prize awarded for fiction in 2012. But the most requested, the most read and the most revered of Johnson's works is 'Jesus' Son.' First published in 1992, this collection of short stories follows our recurring protagonist, who we will call 'FH' but whose name is never actually given. Like many of Johnson's characters, FH is a loser, a lowlife junkie who meanders through the Midwest (sometime in the 1970s) making profound and often poetic observations about the places and bizarre people who he encounters. In these 11 stories, FH is involved in a horrible car accident, picking up odd jobs for cash, fighting and making up with his girlfriend, and a particularly unusual night shift while working as an orderly. These stories are often dark and ugly, but also thoughtful, funny, and poetic. Johnson's prose is more poetic than Bukowski and not as messy as Burroughs, but if you are a fan of either, Jesus' Son will change the way you look at contemporary American "lowlife" fiction.
HPB Staff Review