The master of the iconoclast...Johnson sheds California's darker underbelly in way I'm only beginning to understand having lived here for just over five years now. Perhaps one of the few contemporary fiction writers who can present addled characters amidst drug-induced euphoria without overt or gimmicky counterculture tones. I'd love to see him explore the long form again in his career.

It had some excellent imagery but couldn't keep my interest.

I never do this, but I found myself compulsively underlining bits of Johnson's prose throughout the first "book," until, of course, I got to the bit where Fairchild-- after seeing Van Ness' scribbles in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra-- rants about how much he loathes people that underline in books. Touche, Denis. Way to make me feel like a creep.

The point is, he's just that good... you'll want to remember what he writes, because he writes it so damn well. Unfortunately, his poetic genius comes out in spurts, confined to a few lines or a couple paragraphs- and then he resumes with the plot, which, for all its twisted, grotesque characters and its perfectly-captured northern California-ness makes for a rather dull, drawn-out story.

How much did my familiarity with Gualala, CA increase my enjoyment of this novel? Hard to say. The narrators are a diverse collection of North Coast oddballs and losers, some lethal and some oblivious. The story emerges as the narrators jump forward and back dropping clues and clarifying mysteries raised in prior chapters. My one quibble would be that when characters are not thinking clearly, it can take more pages than the reader would like to get back to a story a reader can follow. Nelson Fairchild is a great character. Highly verbal, insightful and completely lacking in worth. The dialogue between the hired killers or pig men is sometimes hard to follow but is usually amusing. Ex-military surfer/stoner dude Clarence doesn't seem like a real person but he works well at moving the plot. The police officer John Navarro does seem human and not surprisingly, sums things up at the end. A very enjoyable read, hopefully even for those who haven't enjoyed Gualala.

I am in the middle of a project to read all of Denis Johnson’s novels and poetry in publication order. A lot of these are re-reads, but in this case this was my first reading.

At the front of this book, Johnson makes it clear that the plot is not his own but that of a poet called Bill Knott. He explains this further in his acknowledgements where he names the poem. This naming came a bit late for me because I’d already been intrigued by the introductory note and done some internet research to find the poem. It is “Poem Noir” and here is a link to it: http://robotwisdom2.blogspot.com/2007....

I decided to include a link rather than the text of the poem because, clearly, the poem itself would represent a significant spoiler. You can read it if you are interested and not worried about spoilers. Or after you have read the book.

I decided, and you may not agree with this decision, to read the poem before I read the book. And, truth be told, I have a feeling that was a good decision for my personal experience of the book (although obviously I have no way to prove this). The reason I say this is that knowing the basic plot allowed me to do two things. Firstly, it let me concentrate on the writing, and the writing is the star here: Johnson began his writing as a poet and that is evident in all his novels. Secondly, this novel reads a lot like a dream and isn’t always the easiest to follow: knowing the underlying structure kept me oriented. If you prefer not knowing what will happen in a book, save the poem until afterwards.

Writing at oysterboyreview.org, Steve Kistulentz says the following which sort of summarises my reaction to the book:

Early in the book, a minor character describes the words of the English language as being like prisms. "Empty, nothing inside, and still they make rainbows." And the book's interwoven narratives are often interrupted by the text of obsessive, feverish letters written to various law enforcement agencies by Fairchild, and his insane brother. It is the beauty of Johnson's language, especially in these epistles, that evokes the language of religious ritual. The overtone of menace, the Gulf War in the distance, Already Dead deliberately conjures the specter of St. John on Patmos, and the dream-riddled composition of the Book of Revelation. Like his characters gathering to channel messages from the spirit world, Johnson writes as if he himself was possessed with an otherworldly gift. Already Dead may not be a breakthrough success; its subject matter and the intensity of its language and its violence will undoubtedly, and unfairly, limit his audience. But it should remind us to be grateful whenever a writer with Johnson's gifts chooses to take huge, and ultimately worthwhile, risks.

The basic plot is straightforward and you can read the poem if you just want to know that. What matters more here in terms of reading experience is Johnson’s prose and his social criticism. This book followed the more well-known “Jesus Son” but also came just after the release of Johnson’s collected poetry in “The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation’s Millennium General Assembly”. The poetry in the language is often very beautiful and, for me, often more poetic than his poetry (perhaps because of the images he evokes which sit in the context of the novel, but I don’t know). Regarding social criticism, the reviewer I have already quoted gives high praise to Johnson earlier in his review:

The author's insight regarding American society stands equal to the social criticisms of some of the better central European novelists. With writers like Kis, Kundera, and Robert Musil, Johnson seems to share the notion that any individual choice is also political choice; the narrative time frame of the novel parallels the buildup of tensions in the Persian Gulf in the early 1990s. But Johnson's focus on certain fringe groups in today's society makes him peculiarly American, as much a chronicler of this dark age as Twain or Dos Passos were of previous generations.

This book is funny, violent, poetic, and observant. It is not the easiest book to read with its dreamlike prose and regular interruptions from the letters of a mad man. But it is one of those books where you can revel in the language and let the rest wash over you - it is best to let the impressions grow rather than worry about the detail, I think.

Slightly inaccessible but very impressive.

wow. I don't know what to say. I may have to stop reading novels for a while after this one.

This is easily one of my new favourite books. Think 'True Detective' with less functioning Cohle. It's a Southern gothic nightmare.

This was my fourth Denis Johnson book, and I think I've read one too many. Set in post-hippie Northern California, it's the story of a loosely connected group of stoners and aimless, dangerous people whose lives intertwine (and many end) for inconsequential reasons. What passes for a plot serves mostly as a platform for Johnson's exploration of his characters' lives, with a heavy focus on nihilism, musings on reincarnation, and the effect of dissipation on human beings. Although Johnson's descriptive powers are good, it requires work to read this because he delights in making things confusing. Many times I just didn't understand what he was saying, and the conversations among his characters were often so long and undifferentiated that it was hard to tell who was talking. He also strings together sentences that, even when read several times, just don't seem to really say anything. Maybe this is purposeful, since many of the characters were strung out, for one reason or another, almost all the time. So, it's reasonable that the descriptive paragraphs should be the same way, I guess. Anyway, in the end, I was just tired, and while I regretted that I wasn't sure what had really happened, I didn't care enough to try to figure it out.

I guess when a little fly zooms through a window it might be thinking “whee, a great big room to explore, could be some wonderful rotted fruit or a discarded biscuit behind the sofa” and then SPLAT, it runs right into an angry man with a towel.


In this analogy I was – ah I see you guessed. And Denis Johnson was – ah, you guessed that too.

Sort of like Pulp Fiction set in rural Northern California. The plot revolves around a gang of self-destructive and dangerous burnouts. While this easily could have slid into some pretty boring territory, each character is sympathetic and interesting. Johnson does a great job describing the supernatural qualities of day-to-day life without sounding trite, whimsical, or dorky.

One of the great books of all time. I read the last 50 or so pages as slow as possible because I didn't want it to end.

I frequently get great book recommendations from unusual sources. In this case, the recommendation to read this came from the guy who owns the shop that sells old magazine advertisements in Pike Place Market after hearing that I live in Santa Cruz.