I absolutely love Denis Johnson’s short stories but his novels always disappoint. Maybe reading 25 pages about what a miserable sack of shit somebody is, is better than 200 pages of what a miserable sack of shit somebody is. I didn’t realize until into the book that many of these characters are from Tree of Smoke although this book was written first it takes place years later. Since Tree of Smoke sucked so bad, I might have known better than to read this. Only reason this is better than Tree of Smoke is that it’s only 200 pages, while Smoke was 700 so this didn’t waste as much of my time.

In "Angels" by Denis Johnson, readers are plunged into a harrowing narrative that juxtaposes the bleak aspects of the American dream with the stark realities of a descent into madness. The novel follows Jamie Mays, a woman fleeing a life of disappointment, and Bill Houston, a man embroiled in a cycle of violence and despair. Their journey from a hopeful escape to a nightmarish reality unfolds with poetic intensity and brutal honesty.

Johnson's portrayal of their spiraling descent is both captivating and disturbing, marking a stunning exploration of human frailty and the dark corners of the American psyche. Through vivid characters and gripping scenarios, "Angels" stands as a profound commentary on the consequences of desperation and the inevitable pull of doom, showcasing Johnson's remarkable talent in his debut novel.

I loved this book, it kicked my ass. Also: I read that this was one of Kim Gordon’s favs so what more do you need to know?

THIS BOOK IS LIKE IF SOMEONE OFFERED YOU A PLATE OF CHICKEN WINGS AND THEN THEY PUNCH YOU IN THE STOMACH WHEN YOU ARE DONE EATING IT IS PERFECT AND I AM SO SAD NOW

Johnson's first novel Angels presents a grim picture of life in general, especially for those not born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Neither of our main characters, Jamie Mays and Bill Houston, come off as heroes or villains really, just losers on the edge, and the other characters Johnson presents come off the same way. Essentially, Johnson gives us here a tragic tale, one with no winners, people with limited goals and aspirations suffering through life.

Jamie and her two little girls, one only 3 months old, start the tale leaving Oakland away from a husband who cannot keep his dick in his pants. Jamie's goal? Find a relative that lives in Hershey, PA. After several days on the bus, she meets Bill, on his way to Pittsburgh. Bill, ex-navy, ex-con, and with three ex-wives, has a little money and wants to hit the town. Well, they kinda hit it off and end up in a grubby flop in the Burgh, but Bill's money only lasts a few weeks. He splits for Chicago, and after selling some plasma, she takes the kids on a bus to find him there...

Jamie. Pretty clueless, likes her wine and booze, just wanted to get out of her old relationship. Bill. Bit of a happy go lucky guy, who gets money anyway he can; some robberies earned him a stint in the big house. After Jamie gets brutally raped and put in a halfway house, the two manage to find one another and decide to head to Phoenix, where Bill has some family...

While not depressing per se, Angels tells a depressing tale, one with few notes of optimism. Dealing with life is hard, and sometimes, drugs and booze ease the trial, but in the end, usually just make things worse. Yet, I would not call this a morality tale; far from it. Johnson does not preach here, just presents a bleak, gloomy side of the American Dream. 4 dark stars!

Holy cow am I kicking myself in the ass for waiting so long to read this one. Denis Johnson's debut novel is a fractured examination on morality and mortality using sad, lowlife characters. Plotwise, this thing sputters forward in fits. We open on a Greyhound bus, where Jamie Mays, single mother(with kids in tow) has some variation of a white-trash "meet cute" with nomadic drunk, Bill Houston. The book's opening chapters feel like something in the vein of Bonnie and Clyde by way of Darkness on the Edge of Town-era Springsteen. The story shifts and we meet more sad, desperate characters. While the scope does expand and the story unfolds a bit unpredictably, at least in its middle portions(where the grinding gears of a plot may be at work, but the writing is so restrained that you barely notice) it is still unmistakably about Jamie and Bill.

The real joy of this thing is the writing. Simultaneously lean and direct but oblique and sad. Johnson is able to be considerate and empathetic toward his extremely flawed characters without ever teetering into sentimentality. It's a brisk 200 pages, but I found myself stretching it somewhat because it gets really heavy and really sad. It's certainly readable enough to be blown through in a day or two, but the blunt emotional quality of the thing might give it the net result of a marathon instead of a 5K. This is one of the best novels I've read in maybe a year or two and the first in awhile that made me want to throw out whatever I have been writing and start over again.

Extraordinary, enviable prose. So powerful, so overwhelmingly beautiful in the lyrical way it deals with tragedy, death and madness. Denis Johnson has a fascination with fringe characters, the losers, junkies, criminals, the grit and decay at the unseen edges of society. His sentences are artful constructions, often through a lens of blurred cognition, yet always with a wisdom, a zooming out, that hints at a cosmic perspective. Hard to imagine how a debut novel could be so fully realised, although it should be no surprise to anyone who reads him that he was a poet first.

Drogados. Bêbedos. Ladrões. Violadores. Assassinos.
Viagens de autocarro. Hotéis miseráveis. Prisões. Manicómios.
Marginais...

Com este "pacote" abandono qualquer livro às primeiras páginas (não por preconceito, mas por desinteresse), mas Denis Johnson não mo permitiu.
Não gostava das personagens nem do que faziam mas fiquei; prisioneira da escrita e fascinada com a forma como Denis Johnson transforma o horror numa obra de arte.

Não é um livro para guardar no coração, mas valeu a pena...aquele final...

Another writer who died too young. The poetic tragedy of a bunch of losers who are destined to come to a bad end and don't care much about it until it's too late. I think David Foster Wallace included this on his list of the Ten Most Underrated and Unnoticed Books of the Late Twentieth Century - or something like that. The violence isn't vividly displayed because that's not the point - the truth is that there's relatively little - but the thoughts of the principal characters as they swirl in the currents before being sucked down the drain are strangely beautiful, this tension between inviting and avoiding a tragic end - or not really caring - really affected me. Great book.

Más de 4.

A dark, powerful and ultimately tragic tale of Jamie and Bill, who after meeting on a bus start up a friendship and begin a journey that I had a feeling was never going to have a happy ending. Right from the early stages you get a sense of what type of people they are - Jamie is trailer trash and quite vulnerable, who along with her two young daughters; one only being a baby, may be fleeing from her violent partner, whilst Bill has a confident swagger about him; but in the end is just a bit of a loser, having lived a life in and out of prison. There is much unpleasantness to everything from the bars, to the hotels, to the drugs, to the sexual violence and madness, and it's Jamie dragging her children around the dark seedy streets that I found particularly uncomfortable. As for Johnson's writing it's really good, and he handled the last third of the novel with some dignity and tenderness which helped take away the bad taste of the events before. As Johnson's first novel I was very impressed. It painted a realistic picture of two lost souls where the American dream is nowhere in sight.

One of the first authors who made me want to write. I could read this novel over and over.

Angels is an uneven read (it is a debut novel, after all), but it invigorates nonetheless; that is, until it doesn’t. And at this point, the thing has boiled and boiled so that anything that once invigorated has now evaporated and the language of the novel begins to burn and scream in an ugly cry of desperation and the end is now in view, but then—and as always with Johnson—the proverbial Thunder strikes and signals the arrival of the rain, and now you know that the ugly and disfigured thing, once engulfed in flames, will be salvaged, and who knows, maybe even saved.