#619 The Other Man- Denis Johnson

#619 The Other Man- Denis Johnson

This is a story about strangers, longing and identity. Characters are making up fake identities for the fun of it; Characters without a place to sleep, or without access to their temporary place to sleep; Newly married characters out looking for love. This is Denis Johnson, so I find in this story, a sad cold look at the human condition…and booze, there is always booze.

Notable Passage: “It was there. It was. The long walk down the hall. The door opening. The beautiful stranger. The torn moon mended. Our fingers touching away the tears. It was there.”

Rating: 7-6-6-5 Total= 24

#591 Dirty Wedding- Denis Johnson

#591 Dirty Wedding- Denis Johnson

Johnson seems to like to write about assholes, degenerates and dark corners of society. Normally that's right up my alley. However I just haven’t been able to connect with much in this collection, Jesus’ Son. Besides the dirt and the shame and the fear and the pain, there is nothing here. Even a sense of loneliness would be welcoming, but all the characters seem to have a fatalist view of the world that makes me neither root for them or wish them ill. 

So what’s left? Nothing that I can’t find somewhere else, I can take these or leave them. After reading Tree of Smoke, I had such high hopes for his other works. Maybe he’s better at novels.

Notable Passage: “She wanted to eat my heart and be lost in the desert with what she’d done, she wanted to fall on her knees and give birth from it, she wanted to hurt me as only a child can be hurt by its mother.”

Rating: 7-6-6-5 Total= 24

#556 Work Denis Johnson

#556 Work Denis Johnson

  

OK, let’s see: we have an abusive drug addict beating up his abusing drug addict girlfriend; we have an alcoholic so riddled with the DTs that he needs help lifting the day’s first shot up to his mouth; we have robbery, fights, and crooked card games…must be another Denis Johnson short story.

This is a world filled with misery, regret, shame, and little chance of redemption, unless your definition of redemption is a few ill-gotten dollars so you can partake in more bad decisions that lead to misery, regret and shame.

This story isn’t as fun as it sounds.

Notable Passage: “To me you don’t make no more noise than a fart in a paper bag.”

Rating: 7-6-5-5- Total= 23

#528 Dundun- Denis Johnson

#528 Dundun- Denis Johnson

There is no honor among thieves…or drug addicts. Dundun has just accidentally shot McInness. It’s Dunduns birthday, he’s been smoking opium to honor the occasion and now he’s just shot someone. The narrator is the driver, and is doing this to curry favor in the group. They drive past endless fields of dying crops, in a futile attempt for salvation.

“It was a long straight road through dry fields as far as a person could see. You’d think the sky didn’t have any air in it, and the earth was made of paper. Rather than moving, we were just getting smaller and smaller.”

Unfortunately, sometimes there is no salvation to be had. McInnes dies in route and they dump the body. “Most of the farmers didn’t even plant anymore.”

Rating: 7-6-5-5 Total= 23

#493 Out on Bail- Denis Johnson

#493 Out on Bail- Denis Johnson

This is a drinking take, full of degenerates, crime, and little hope. Johnson is doing his best William Boroughs impersonation. The narrator flashes from memory to memory of his times at the Vine bar and his acquaintance, Jack Hotel that just beat a 25 year prison sentence for robbing a drug dealer. Although not a fantastic story, or an original one for that matter, it does have some nice quotes about drinking.

-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.

-Sometimes what I wouldn’t give to have us sitting at a bar again at 9:00 a.m. telling lies to one another, far from God.

Rating: 7-7-6-7 Total= 27

#472 Two Men- Denis Johnson

#472 Two Men- Denis Johnson

This is a world filled with temporary connections, drunken courage and bad decisions. The Narrator is at a party with his two “friends” which are more like criminal partners. He gets caught fooling around with another man’s girlfriend and then gets as drunk as he can.

The rest of the night is these three degenerates, driving around town with another drunk they found in the back of their car. They are all just looking for the next thing, the next place to go, all the while worried about what fateful things from their past is on its way to do them harm.

Rating: 6-5-6-6 Total= 23

#451 Car Crash While Hitchhiking- Denis Johnson

#451 Car Crash While Hitchhiking- Denis Johnson

“The traveling salesman had fed me pills that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out. My jaw ached. I knew every raindrop by its name. I sensed everything before it happened. I knew a certain Oldsmobile would stop for me even before it slowed, and by the sweet voices of the family inside it I knew we’d have an accident in the storm.”

And yes, all that happened; the horror of the accident and the realities of the lives of the victims, all untouched by this hitchhiker. He is a mere spectator, unattached to life and unharmed by this car crash. He is a ghost, an angel, a demon? Or is he merely the manifest meaninglessness we all pick up along the road.

“I looked down into the great pity of a person’s life on this earth. I don’t mean that we all end up dead, that’s not the great pity. I mean that he couldn’t tell me what he was dreaming, and I couldn’t tell him what was real.”

Rating: 8-7-8-8 Total= 31