My experience with Denis Johnson is a lot like my experience with Michael Chabon, except that I have yet to read anything by him that is anywhere close to amazing. I found Jesus’ Son to be too drug obsessed, and I am not the audience for that anymore, and Tree of Smoke was too long and it had too many historical elements that confused the hell out of me plot wise. Johnson is a master at these horribly damaged people living in a world they have no idea about the inner workings of, despite years of travel, work, and love. But he gets too obsessed with that aspect and his plots seem kind of weak, even from the distance of only having read the synopsis on the back cover (although Already Dead seems really cool, although the length scares me from my experience with Tree of Smoke). I decided to go back instead of forward for my next venture into the wounded worlds of Denis Johnson, and was lucky to find a cheap old Vintage Contemporaries copy (which have some of my favorite cover art) in Half-Priced Books. Again, like The Yiddish Policeman’s union, it is the best thing I have read by Johnson, but is in no way great. It is a simple story of two lost people meeting on a Greyhound bus, whose mutual pain and loneliness leads them down a road of shocking violence that ends tragically. I like both characters, and Johnson doesn’t resort to pretentious hipness in describing their wandering lives, like many the talentless beat writers), and grounds the book in a sense of morality, even when something like a rape is being committed. It gets to dreamy toward the end, making the ending too confusing, but I do recommend this book quite well. It is a good road novel that doesn’t rely on the characters coolness and I really want to read Already Dead sometime soon.
Rating: 4/5
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