Jesus' Son: Stories
by Denis Johnson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Denis JohnsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1993-12-15
ISBN: 0060975776
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Jesus' Son: Stories
Book Review: "And you, you ridiculous people...how do you expect me to help you?"
Summary: 5 Stars
The work of German born writer Denis Johnson will hold a peculiar place in the fashionably extensive fictional literature of "addiction", if he really belongs there at all--he transcends the genre he writes within by virtue of his oddly individual voice. You might say that these stories are not unlike something a more coherent David Lynch might pen if he had suffered the horrendous afflictions of drug addiction, alcoholism and also possessed a stronger moral sense.
For all the sordid phantasmagoria in each one of these strangely touching, quietly brutal little parables, Johnson never once takes off from reality completely; in fact, not only is he writing about people and events which are all too real, he is detailing their most intimate characteristics in an uncommonly empathetic way. The ending of "Dundun" is the most painfully illustrative of this uncanny and singular ability.
His instinctive understanding of the relationship between the irredeemably, casually broken and hopelessly lost is not flaunted or made to seem "hip" or anything of the kind: Johnson is aiming for a higher moral vision here, I think, something that hasn't been done before and certainly couldn't by a lesser talent or even an above average writer. This is not an appeal to the drug-addled "Trainspotting" vein (no pun intended) in literature but an amazingly successful attempt to transcend it. Explaining Johnson's unmistakable singularity in words is impossible to do, which is fitting: these tiny allegorical atom bombs are meant to roam through the subconscious, not to be explained logically. Essential reading.
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