There is a lot here to like, but the book bogs down seriously. It needed a better edit, better shape. It's a book to read for the individual characters and scenes. Forget the story.

beautifully written, as per ushe for Johnson, and his foggy Mendocino County is wonderfully evocative, but i found this to be fairly grueling otherwise. perhaps i just wasn’t in the mood for something so baggy and aimless

i am very literally the target audience for a "california gothic" and truly denis johnson more than the next guy, but i hate this book more than i hate weed - and i hate weed more than merle haggard! rambling, unmoored, garbage...sorry dj...

This book made me wish I was already dead. I read Jesus' son by Denis Johnson & greatly enjoyed it. This book left me frustrated and dismayed. I couldn't follow the story, I didn't feel the characters were developed enough. I really had no feelings or interest for any of the characters in the book. Occasionaly I would get a few pages of Denis Johnson's talent but for the most part I was greatly disappointed. It took me so long to finish this book because I really had to force myself to get through it.

tDenis Johnson’s, Already Dead: A California Gothic depicts how one evades and travels through life having only the landscape as the ultimate guide. There are no shortcuts. The unexpected is to be expected when reading this novel because of all the twists and turns that are revealed. Drugs have become the salvation for Nelson Fairchild Jr., in the sense that he is in debt because of a cocaine deal, and in order to pay back the kingpin he must do what ever it takes, which is to open a marijuana farm. This is not the way to revive oneself. Surrounded by debt and the loss of not being included in his fathers inheritance, Fairchild Jr. must find a way, no matter what it is to bring himself back to life. The revival of the hippie era lives within this book. Denis Johnson engulfs the reader in the beginning of the book. The imagery used to capture the attention is immaculate. Every aspect of this story has been thought out without leaving anything astray or ignored. The characters all have their own distinct “self.” Either when it comes to his paranoid little brother or the junkie philosopher, they all grab the attention of the intention to not just entertain but to explore new routes of oneself. Besieged by death, murder, drugs, spirituality, and philosophy, Nelson Fairchild Jr. battles through himself. This story parallels the life of some of the California coastal life, not exactly to the word, but to some of the experiences. Being able to relate this to real life has helped understand how one would choose to live their life. The question that comes up is why would one choose to live like this? The real is answer is, that it is just how life plays out, there are no directions on what to do, curve balls are apart of life. It is how you handle the curve balls that are thrown at one, and whether you take a swing or not, you still decide the road of your life. In my opinion it is similar to the Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Less Traveled. Everyone has choices and Fairchild Jr. makes his because of the cards he has been dealt. Johnson speaks through Fairchild Jr. by describing Northern California as a place where the youth and the kindest and most progressive souls thrive. But in contrast yet there is still the murderous treachery that lies beneath the blinding light of the enlightened youth. A main theme that is sustained throughout the novel is human catastrophe. Johnson seemed to be very contrite towards the failures that were relevant within the characters. The driving force behind this novel is Nelson Fairchild Jr., but what controls and takes the reader on journey is the landscape. Fairchild Jr. is controlled by the natural factors of life and his environment. The influence of his surroundings is what guides him to his decisions and encounters with people and life.

I’ve waited awhile to review this book, almost 2 weeks if anyone’s counting. This was Johnson’s longest book I’ve read, easily eclipsing most of his other work, and I think the pacing of this book shows that. This book took me quite a while to read, part of that being I took a break from reading for most of December and January, but also because of how it’s formatted. Johnson’s plots are always thin, but for a book this long it made me take my time with it. This may seem like a sharp criticism, and contradictory to my rating, but I loved this book. I didn’t know until I finished it that the entire story was based off of a short poem that Johnson liked; looking it up after and seeing how much Johnson created from the inspiration honestly made the book even more special in my eyes. I don’t even know where to begin when I talk about these characters. I liked the experimentation he did with the story, following the protagonist, Fairchild, while other chapters have the local police officer read his long last words written in blood explaining his demise. All of Johnson’s characters are so fundamentally incongruent with how I view the world typically, and I think that’s what I loved about this novel especially. From the longer length, the motivations and thoughts of these characters were far more fleshed out, and Johnson was able to include more characters, whereas Angels and Resuscitation of a Hanged Man only followed a couple. I read most of this book in a week that was warm in Monroe Park under a tree, and found myself transported in a way through this book unlike many others I’ve read. It’s not that I could vividly imagine the valley full of half grown marijuana plants that Fairchild obsessed over, or how his brother lived in the woods surrounded by rusting bodies of forgotten cars. What I imagined was the dialogue, the true vital heart of this story. The suspension of disbelief in this story is that no one says a single normal fucking sentence, and a character can walk into a bar spilling blood onto his stool and all the characters have to say about it is “You having one of them days, boy.” I can go on forever about every single phrase in this book, because all of them merit a breath. I strongly recommend this book.

Brilliant, testing, prose that burns, time that doubles back on itself, ideas that careen off each other, pages of splendid incoherence, the American soul wham-bamed.

Infidelity and insurance scams. Hitmen and traumatized veterans. Drunken cops and shady drug dealers.

Denis Johnson’s book "Already Dead" certainly shares characteristics with classic California noir from the likes of Hammet and James M. Cain. In fact, the plot of Already Dead is copped directly from a poem called “Poeme Noir”. But this is a far hazier and more discursive book than what is typical of the genre.

Where those authors generated tension through straightforward but densely compact narratives, Already Dead can be summarized in a few sentences. The story is decompressed and alinear, cycling back and forth between the actions of the principal characters, jumping around in time, and utilizing frame narratives. It’s a disorienting effect.

In fact, the plot doesn’t really even MATTER. Johnson delights in revealing plot details outright, or stating the fates of key characters in the opening lines of a chapter. But his passive, almost laconic voice and penchant for the strange and mystical keeps the book surprisingly engaging. There’s a creepy, Twin Peaks-esque energy here: doppelgangers, witches, vast forests. It’s a foreboding, atmospheric read that nonetheless has a wicked sense of humor to it. Just like all of Denis Johnson’s work.

A typical crime novel this is not. And it's all the more magnetic and engrossing for it.

takes place in california.
the most effective use of amorality as a principle driving force for character development that ive ever seen.
beautifully woven narrative. haunted and obscure. empty yet enriched through a descriptive tone that's unmatched.
the story is compelling as fuck.
love this book

This had my attention in the first third or so, and then it stretched on and on and I just lost interest. The prose is often beautiful and the dialogue is absolutely stellar, often so dry and dark and funny, but the plot was just too elusive for me to fully enjoy the book as a whole.

How did the book make me feel/think?

Denis Johnson had a mercurial capacity to take the most unlikely characters, cretins, broken, unlovable, and then turn them into complex absurdities… living, lost, lonely.

ALREADY DEAD paints a complex picture of the adversities of living in society’s far reaches—the fractured dreams of those who can never belong in the norm. A large portion of us. Real. But teetering in the depths of a fantasy nobody would ever want.

Johnson’s writing is poetic, transporting readers into an uncomprehending world. What we can all grasp is the beautiful bitterness of loneliness, something that inflicts each one of us from time to time.

“Eventually, we take responsibility,” she says, “for having created our world.” Indeed, the demons were in his head. Gumdrops in a dream were not gumdrops, but a dream. But as long as you don’t wake, they’re candy. You can eat them. If they’re poison, they kill you. Then you wake, still alive. But in the dream, you’re dead.

That’s how this book made me feel.

RIP DENIS

WRITTEN: December 21, 2020​

pretty crazy stuff. this book is about a guy who owes some money to another guy, and hires a drifter with a fu manchu to do some semi-related but not too related dirty work for him. but that's not all. there is a great ensemble cast: POV chapters, time jumps, etc. great suspense. the prose in this book is exquisite and haunting. it has a coen bros ish feel, like fargo or no country-- almost burn after reading at points but too sinister. there are a lot of degenerates and weirdos in this book, and it gets pretty grim. it has an unnecessary subtitle: a california gothic--- but it is a lot more than just that. it is not a "genre story." there are many mysteries in the pages of this book. plus it has sex, guns, redwoods, surfers, psychedelics, criminals, pot, a guy nicknamed frankenstein, church, dogs, a porsche, and a witch.