Denis Johnson

Reading the two stories toward the end of Denis Johnson's 1992 collection, Jesus' Son, that are set in Seattle leaves me w the feeling of sadness. Whereas most of the other stories are dark passages of addiction and violence they also include some winsome humor - honor among thieves - and a sense of the narrator's trying to ride into a new life and if regret for those whom he may have harmed (all of the stories are from a perspective of looking back 20 years or so to a troubled youth). The two Seattle stories are of a man w little or nothing in his life aside from addiction - much darker stories than the others and less complex in emotional register (they make a interesting contrast w Sherman Alexie's story about a 2-day alcoholic binge in the same territory but leavened by the social obligations and generosity of the Native American community). I am not so dumb as to think these stories are strictly autobiographical - but also not so naive as to think they are entirely of the imagination, either. All writers draw from both all the time tho w varying and ever-changing degrees (when I interviewed DJ years ago as noted in earlier post we talked about his then-new novel, Fiskadoro, set in the Florida keys and I was surprised to learn that DJ has never been there). But to think that such a kind and talented writer had experienced even a portion of this despair in his youth is troubling - and maybe in a perverse way inspirational, too, to think he could have made art of these experiences (interesting contrast w his near contemporary also recently passed, Thom Jones) and go on to a great if too-short career as a writer and journalist.

Sent from my iPhone