Jesus’ Son
September 18th, 2002p>by Denis Johnson
ISBN: 0060975776
This is a collection of stories, which sometimes seem gritty for the sake of being gritty.
The stories are loosely connected, sharing the same first-person narrator. He’s a loser: an addict, shiftless, marginal, but he knows it. Some of the sense of “grittiness for the sake of grittiness” probably goes comes with the territory, and is enhanced by the stark, almost clipped prose style.
There are occasional moments that shine through, though, and that is why I’d keep reading. The last story, “Beverly Home” was the best, having two such moments of truth that stood out. Each time, Johnson managed this with just two sentences. First: “He was completely and openly a mess. Meanwhile the rest of us go on trying to fool each other.” Then the story ends with this paragraph: “All these weirdos, and me getting a little better every day right in the midst of them. I had never known, never imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us.”
I checked this book out from the library. I’d put it on a borrow but don’t buy list. I’ll probably check out something else of Johnson’s in the future.
