Jesus' Son : Stories by

Rating:
Summary: Stories of Remarkable Intensity and Clarity
Review: I've never read anything by Chuck Palahniuk. I know about him, however, because the movie 'Fight Club' is based upon Palahniuk's novel of the same title. Chuck Palahniuk is a big fan of Denis Johnson's collection of short stories, 'Jesus' Son.' A recent article about Palahniuk in Poets & Writers Magazine says that Palahniuk 'has read 'Jesus' Son' over and over'more than two hundred times.' Palahniuk says, in that article, 'whenever I'm stuck, that's a book I read to sort of jump start myself.'

Palahniuk's endorsement was good enough for me. Any book that someone has read more than two hundred times must be worthwhile, or at least worth taking a look at. Besides, this remarkable collection of short stories is only 160 pages long, the pages are small (I measured it and it was about 7' x 4'), and there are not many words on each page. It doesn't take long to read. If it matters, I also always knew Denis Johnson was out there, a highly regarded poet and novelist, ever since 'Fiskadoro' had been published more than a decade ago. I had to read something by him sometime.

I sat down last night and started reading 'Jesus' Son' and didn't put it down until I was finished. It didn't take me long and was worth every minute. 'Jesus' Son' contains eleven short stories, all written in the first person, all connected by the common voice of the same narrator, a young, strung-out misfit whose pathology permeates every story. The stories are grim, just like the dark, desperate life of the narrator, just like the violent, disconnected, drug-clouded lives of the people who surround him. They are stories in which the narrator seemingly transcends his life, his drug- and alcohol-induced cloud of unknowing illuminating an at times crystalline-pure vision of the world. The physical world becomes continuous with the mental world in rushes of stunning prose. Thus, in 'Car Crash While Hitchhiking,' Johnson's narrator, sitting in the back of a car: 'Under Midwestern clouds like great grey brains we left the superhighway with a drifting sensation and entered Kansas City's rush hour with a sensation of running aground.' And later, while in a hospital emergency room, his mind drifts in a kind of hallucinatory fugue: 'It was raining. Gigantic ferns leaned over us. The forest drifted down a hill. I could hear a creek rushing down rocks. And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you.'

The writing is brilliant, attaining remarkable heights of intensity and clarity. At the same time, the characters and the events are dark and disturbing, the narrative interrupted and discontinuous. There is drug addiction, alcoholism, violence, torture, murder, voyeurism. There is a disturbing coldness, but also a profound clarity. It is writing from the bowels of life, writing that achieves its power through prose that is as hard, as pure, as the finest diamond. 'Jesus' Son' is not an upbeat collection of stories, but it is resplendent with a writing style and an imagination that celebrates the power of fiction written with stark feeling, written so it reflects the real lives of its desperate characters.

Rating:
Summary: Jesus' dysfunctional children
Review: Let's imagine that Raymond Carver (the short story writer) and Charles Simic (the poet) produced an offspring who immersed himself in Beat literature and dropped acid. Such an offspring might be the author of this book. Like Simic, Johnson pins down the surreal, the grotesque; and like Carver, he makes use of a narrative style at once plain and poetic. And like every serious writer before him, Johnson brings to light some of our most urgent human emotions: fear of death, desperation, loneliness, fear of taking responsibility for someone else as well as for oneself.

"Jesus' Son," marketed as a collection of stories, is really one disjointed story whose various settings include hospitals, abandoned houses, a seedy bar called The Vine, and the highways and country roads connecting them. The story isn't told chronologically, so I'd recommend reading the book two, three more times. Characters in one story make flash cameos in another, and specific happenings in earlier stories are alluded to in later stories. Fantastic stuff.

Each story works as a kind of prose poem: terse, cadenced, elegant. Johnson wastes not a single word or image. The best of these stories (to me, at least) is "Emergency," which is truly nothing short of a contemporary masterpiece. It begins with a man wandering into a hospital emergency room with a knife in his eye, and ends with two hospital workers driving aimlessly in the country while caring for near-dead baby rabbits. I'll give away nothing else, but brace yourself: the dialogue is hilarious and the portrayal of the medical establishment (in all its humanness) isn't too flattering. And the ironies and complexities of the book's title will keep your mind active long after you've completed the last sentence. In short, a great book, highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: A Compelling Classic
Review: I'm not usually a reader 'high literature' and yet I found myself completely sucked into this collection of short stories about a perpetual screw up. The writing is minimalist, so every word counts. There were times when I thought a story was underwritten, but overall I found myself holding on to this book after I read it. I won't even lend it out! It's definitely a book I will read again. Also check out The Losers' Club by Richard Perez, [e-mail] (a medicated memoir) by Tom Grimes (which Denis Johnson recommends, too).

Rating:
Summary: God Type Thing
Review: Jesus' Son

It's years now since I worked at the company. I can still hear Disch ranting. Two topics, every time we passed: get a Chris Whitley CD; get Jesus' Son. Disch was right, on both counts. I know that now.

Jesus' Son is really no more than a series of short stories about the exploits of one guy schlepping through his life. And the guy is a piece of work. He's a mess. A drug addict. Usually broke. And with a penchant for just bad situations. But I don't know. When you're reading it, it seems perfectly normal that he should be driving around with the equivalent of O'Connor's Misfit, watching the dissection of roadkill and suffocating bunnies. Not just like it could have been you, but that it is you. And that's the magic of Johnson.

... The only problem with the book is that it ends. The main character wanders from bad to worse and back again in a series of vignettes that read like redemptions. And they are. Not just for the character but for literature. Here's the thing: the book is like reading one long, perfect poem. The imagery is obscenely precise. Reading it is like taking a legal ride on a hallucinogenic. I know they say nothing is original. Bull. Johnson is and I'd defy anyone to argue the counterpoint.

Okay, so it isn't a book you give to Grandma. I'll give you that. If you are an avid reader, you'll like it. But if you're a writer, you should be smacked if you haven't read this yet. It's a writer's book. Most writers are masters of technique. Some are masters of art. Johnson is both, and then some. Without sugar, without contrivance and with so much edge you can cut yourself on the words.

If you write and you can put this book down without regret during your read, you should find another profession. Johnson is just that good.

Rating:
Summary: depressing and hopeless despite Johnson's apparent genius.
Review: Jesus' Son is a terribly depressing and hopeless work. Mr. Johnson shows us a vision of America through the eyes of a (sadly) postmodern character: burnt out, a criminal and an adict.

Despite the hopelessness, I remained enthralled by what I suppose to be Mr. Johnson's skillfull turning of English and his seeming struggle to evince meaning from a meaningless world.

The final story I thought ALMOST made the entire reading worthwhile. Mr. Johnson presents his junkie protagonist fighting to escape the quagmire of depravity, convinced of the reality of (at least) beauty, and in the midst of rehab. Through his peeping-tom-ish final escapade, Mr. Johnson, through his character, gives the reader a refreshing and unique picture of the Universal Man and His creature, if as Aquinas says, it is disquised as the creature's longing for joy.

In the end, I don't feel myself better off for having read this book. I don't deny Mr. Johnson's genius (he is one of the best writers I have read in a while), but most of these stories are depressingly depraved and hopeless. It is, sadly, a marvelous depiction of the end result of postmodern American culture.

My recomendation: pick up the book and read the first and (particularly) last stories. It will save you a week or so of suicidal tendancies.

Rating:
Summary: Johnson writes like a slummin angel
Review: The beauty of Johnson's prose is evident in every one of these stories. The subject matter is dark, depressing, hallucinegenic, and yet the collection's overall feel is uplifting. Johnson could have written some cliched grotesqueries about the drug life, could have piled on the filth and dirt of it all, but he doesn't. The down-and-out characters, most of them junkies and criminals, are given a healthy dose of humanity, where a lesser writer would have turned them into abominable caricatures. Unlike most post modern writers, Johnson cares deeply about his characters and this comes out in every story. He doesn't follow the pomo aesthetic by declaring that life is inherently meaningless or hopeless, far from it. What we come to find in this amazing collection is the presence of hope in all things, no matter how low or degraded things might appear. And that is precisely what Denis Johnson shows us. There is beauty in everything, and if we can't see that, then we are not fully human.

Rating:
Summary: Lost in A Drug-like World
Review: This was seen on a recommended list by a somewhat famous author. I was sadly disappointed. The book had a number of short stories of which NONE inspired me. One of the stories mentions how one can't just sit on the bus as 'you've got to have a destination'. It's too bad the author of this book had no true destination. I was simply lost in nonsense. Don't give this your time--it's a waste of time. I felt the same way the author did on the last page of the book when he wrote 'Sometimes I heard voices muttering in my head, and a lot of the time the world seemed to smolder around its edges'. That's for sure...what a shame.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and Tragic
Review: This slim book can easily be read in a few hours. The short stories are all vignettes out of the lives of the addicted and the desperate.

What this book does, better than any other book I've read, is capture the beauty and tragedy of these lost lives. Johnson is great at imagery, whether the misty, sunlit dive bar on a rickety pier, or the deserted drive-in in the snow. He's also great at writing from the inside of these characters-- their tragic worldview makes sense through their eyes. The hallucinatory beauty of these "prose-poems" goes hand-in-hand with the altered perceptions of the characters-- these people live as if in a dream state.

If you're ready to write off people on the fringes of society, then you probably won't appreciate this book. Like he did in "Angels," Johnson takes these forgotten people, and makes them live and breathe on the page. Many times, his characters seem more truly alive than those who would write them off or forget about them.

Rating:
Summary: long time favorite
Review: I read this book for the first time about eight years ago, and I still find myself thinking about certain lines and images from the stories. It's great writing and very concise. Despite the dark subject matter, I find the stories inspiring and they resonate with me although I don't find drugs or crime very romantic. Johnson's novel, "Already Dead" is also very amazing, and a more elaborate story.

Rating:
Summary: Buy this right now!
Review: First, this is a review of the book, not the movie. The book the movie's based on, not the movie which is based upon it. Got it?

Secondly, the book is about a drug user, and contains lots of profanity. Some people consider the title blasphemous. If that bothers you, stop reading this epinion and write your own. Please don't take your problems with the book out on me.

Now I can get on with it.

Jesus' Son: stories / by Denis Johnson is a collection of short stories by Denis Johnson (?!), strung together like paper dolls. They were originally published in The New Yorker, Esquire, and the Paris Review, among others.

The stories center around the meanderings of a heroin junkie--a dude named F'head (Apostrophes signal omissions, 'member?)--who never really knows where he is, or what's going on. Like the protagonist in the movie Trainspotting, which is very similar to Jesus' Son, F'head realizes his life is going nowhere, but he finds himself trapped in a cycle of hopelessness and addiction and fantasy.

And I quote, quote: "I'm not ready to go into all that," I said. A yellow bird fluttered close to my face, and my muscles grabbed. Now I was flopping like a fish. When I squeezed shut my eyes, tears exploded from the sockets. When I opened them, I was on my stomach. endquote, p.12.

F'head's friends, Tom, Richard, Jack Hotel, hang out at a shady bar called The Vine and get involved in junkie intrigue: shootings, pill-poppings, and meetings to hatch petty heists. Much of the miserableness starts there. Later (earlier?), F'head works as an orderly in a hospital and a nursing home. Now I understand my health care professionals better.

As a narrator, F'head is incredibly uncredible, sprinkling hallucinations into his stories, telling stories that he later realizes never happened, and often going "unstuck" in time, Vonnegut-style, throwing any sense of continuity right out the window. Knock, knock. Who's there? A surrealist. A surrealist who? Banana. Like that, just smarter and silly-less.

Denis Johnson's prose is magnificent. Look:

...this afternoon was the best of those times. We had money. We were grimy and tired. Usually we felt guilty and frightened, because there was something wrong with us, and we didn't know what it was; but today we had the feeling of men who had worked. p. 65.

Jesus' Son's F'head is probably the most sympathetic anti-hero you'll find. You'll laugh at the dead-on dialogue, smile at F'head's innocence, cry at his loneliness, wonder at the wonderfulness of the writing, and act out any other verb that can be associated with a butt-busting good read.

So, read this book.