“Yüreğinin derinlerinde, bir ömrün bütün gerilimi çözülüp bala dönüşüyordu.”
Bir otobüs yolculuğunda tanışıp arkadaş olan iki çocuk annesi Jamie ve Bill’in trajik, karanlık ve kasvetli hikayesi. Yolculuk, yurtsuzluk ve arayışın şiirsel bir dille anlatıldığı bir tutunamayanlar romanı. Yeraltı Edebiyatı sevenleri memnun edecek bir roman.

You know that fateful moment in Jaws when they hire Quint to kill the shark, and all the fates are sealed? That's like the moment you acquire and read this beautiful book for the first time.

”He decided to go over a couple of blocks to Michael’s Tavern for something cold, and as he walked beside the road he felt his anger burning up in the heat of noon, and saw himself, as he often did when he was outdoors on hot days, being forged in enormous fires for some purpose beyond his imagining. He was only walking down a street toward a barroom, and yet in his own mind he took his part in the eternity of this place. It seemed to him – it was not the first time – that he belonged in Hell, and would always find himself joyful in its midst. It seemed to him that to touch James Houston was to touch one iota of the vast grit that made the desert and hid the fires at the center of the earth.”

Svårt att värja sig mot detta.

Angels is Johnson's first novel, and I suppose it shows, just a bit. I found myself skimming a little through the first sixty pages or so. The writing seemed a little hesitant or maybe it rang a bit false for me through the beginning. By the middle and end of the book, I was hooked.

Angels is the sad story of two people on the fringes of society: Jamie, escaping what she thinks is a terrible life with her two young daughters and Bill Houston, a drifter ex-military, ex-con, alcoholic looking for his next high and easy money. The two meet on a cross country greyhound bus and despite Jamie having sworn off men, she's charmed by Bill Houston and decides to hang out with him a while.

The thing about Denis Johnson's characters is that they're so real and gritty. He creates these realistic characters, low lives, some might say- but he does so with grace and understanding. Above all, they are humans and Johnson forces the reader to empathize and see them as humans, despite their shortcomings.

I rated this four stars initially, but some passages deserve nothing less than five stars- I can't stop thinking about one passage in particular where I had to stop reading as I realized what it would truly be like to lose your mind. The horror and powerlessness of how that would feel in brief moments of lucidity was absolutely perfectly rendered by Johnson, and it was terrifying (The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman comes close, but not quite). How we can be controlled by our desires, no matter what they are, and miss what is all around us right here and now and what a terrible shame that is, how we piss it all away in out pursuit of other, better things. How in a moment, a split second, our lives can fall apart and how you can't take that moment back. How it feels to be utterly powerless.

I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that I don't know how a person could read through Bill Houston's last chapters and not be affected, even if it just makes you pause and think.

A book that will stay with me a long time, just as Jesus' Son has.