Review by Karen Langley
Denis Johnson was a prolific American author, producing during his writing life nine novels, one novella, two books of short stories, three collections of poetry, two collections of plays, and one book of reportage. His first published work was a poetry collection in 1969 and he had released a number of novels by the time he came to prominence in 1992 with his collection of short stories, Jesus’ Son. This book has just been reissued by Granta in a striking new paperback edition so it seems a good time to reappraise Johnson’s seminal work.
Jesus’ Son is a linked cycle of stories which takes its title (and perhaps its inspiration) from the Velvet Underground song Heroin (written by Lou Reed); and the book’s epigraph is a quote from the lyrics. The eleven stories are:
- 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
These stories follow the lives and exploits of a group of addicts in rural America, and their escapades include drug use, petty crime and even murder. This is a harsh landscape, full of dropouts who don’t fit into regular society, and their lives are often brutal. Narrated by a young man identified in one story only as ‘Fuckhead’, these fragmented tales (sometimes no more than a vignette) paint a picture of someone struggling to retain a grip on reality.
The book’s opener sets the scene, with the narrator recounting several occasions of hitchhiking, one of which results in a fatal crash. As the character continues his odyssey through the America of the 1970s he encounters every druggie scenario you could imagine. There are dealers handing out death as well as drugs in remote farmhouses; addicts falling in love in motel rooms; a surprising day when honest work makes the junkies some money; and a shocking sequence where a hospital orderly saves a man with a knife in his head. The narrator moves in a grim world, with time as a fluid construct, and yet he manages to survive.
There were many moments in the Vine like that one—where you might think today was yesterday, and yesterday was tomorrow, and so on. Because we all believed we were tragic, and we drank. We had that helpless, destined feeling. We would die with handcuffs on. We would be put a stop to, and it wouldn’t be our fault. So we imagined. And yet we were always being found innocent for ridiculous reasons.
Despite the bleakness of the narrative, with the characters inhabiting a harsh and often brutal world, this is balanced by the lyrical quality of the writing which can be beautiful and evocative. The nebulous quality of the narration perhaps reflects the confusion of someone abusing substances, and I often had the sense that Johnson was channelling the Beat authors, bringing them into his own world. Certainly, some of the surreal imagery he uses is reminiscent of William S. Burroughs, and the freewheeling attitude of his characters reflects Kerouac.
The home lay in a cul-de-sac in east Phoenix, with a view into the desert surrounding the city. This was in the spring of that year, the season when some varieties of cactus produced tiny blossoms out of their thorns. To catch the bus home each day I walked through a vacant lot, and sometimes I’d run right up on one – one small orange flower that looked as if it had fallen down here from Andromeda, surrounded by a part of the world cast mainly in eleven hundred shades of brown, under a sky whose blueness seemed to get lost in its own distances. Dizzy, enchanted – I’d have felt the same if I’d been walking along and run into an elf out here sitting in a little chair. The desert days were already burning, but nothing could stifle these flowers.
However, Johnson has a voice all of his own, and there were moments when the beauty of the prose caught me off guard. By the end of the book there is a sense that the narrator is pulling his life together a little more; in the last story, he’s working in a care home, seeking out relationships and attending meetings to try to kick his various habits. His journey through addiction has brought him to a point of hope; where his life went after that, who knows; we can but hope he kept it together.
Jesus’ Son is a short but addictive read, and I suspect I’m not the only reader who would have liked to have more of the narrator’s escapades. Johnson’s writing is excellent and he takes gritty, raw material and spins it into unforgettable stories laced with unexpected beauty. It’s clear why this book caused such a sensation when it was published, and has deservedly become a classic. It’s an excellent introduction to Johnson’s writing!
Karen Langley blogs at kaggsysbookishramblings and the only thing she’s addicted to is books… (www.kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com)
Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son (Granta, 2026). 978-1803513522, 133pp., paperback.
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