Jesus’ Son

A favorite of writing workshops, the stories in Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son take place among dusty watering holes, hellish hitchhiking disasters, or any other scenario in which alcoholics and addicts can kiss self-respect goodbye. Johnson's characters are self-medicating bums whose inadequacies shine in epic failures such as watching a family die while trying to sober up on a rainy highway or asking a girlfriend what doctors stuck inside of her minutes after an abortion. These people aren't heroes, but their ability to cheat death while lacking virtue or common sense positions them as gods of an all-too-human underbelly of middle America, and Johnson's juxtaposition of cartoonish ne'er-do-wells with the cold reality of mortality makes for a dizzyingly intense collection of short fiction. Told by a narrator known only as Fuckhead, the stories present instances in which a bad streak may be turned around but usually is not—the guy's name is Fuckhead after all—and it's this very ubiquity of lost chances that ultimately imbues Jesus' Son with a skewed Christian sensibility. Johnson's world isn't just one where losers lose; it's one where chances for redemption are always one trip, hit, or sip away.