It’s taken me too long to get around to reading Denis Johnson, but here I am. I just read Jesus’ Son and I want to recommend it to everyone because it was that good, but I’m having trouble thinking about what to say about it? Let’s see.
I think my first reaction to these stories was confusion, sort of at how anything in them could be happening in the first place because they’re dreamy and fuzzy and vague. They’re also pretty brutal – they are the stories of, as a blurb on the back puts it, “dreamers, addicts, and lost souls”, and to do any of Johnson’s fantastic characters justice I’ll just have to quote him:
“That night I sat in a booth across from Kid Williams, a former boxer. His black hands were lumpy and mutilated. I always had the feeling he might suddenly reach out his hands and strangle me to death. He spoke in two voices. He was in his fifties. He’d wasted his entire life. Such people were very dear to those of us who’d wasted only a few years. With Kid Williams sitting across from you it was nothing to contemplate going on like this for another month or two.”
And so maybe you can understand that my second reaction was to lap this up. The stories in Jesus’ Son ARE brutal and violent, but they’re also witty and sad and tough and sweet, and with characters like Kid Williams and Jack Hotel – won’t tell you about him – they’re hard to forget. Johnson is a great writer, and a short story master, and I’m a convert now. Better late than never! Right!
Susie
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