#17: Work by Denis Johnson

Available: Jesus' Son

Originally published: 1992

Influence on: Chuck Palahniuk

I read a lot of short fiction, but rarely have I been more spoilt than last weekend, reading this and Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, back to back. I will get onto Wells Tower later this month (and indeed, he's no major discovery, having received deserved attention around the world for his short fiction). Denis Johnson is a rarer find. Chuck Palahniuk recommends him at his personal website, but I was otherwise unfamiliar with his work.

The last time I saw Zoe Dattner she said I had to read Jesus' Son, originally released in 1992, and so began a week long quest for this elusive collection, my fervour dissipating only once I had it in my hands. I boarded the plane to Sydney and read this from cover to cover. It was the one time I actually enjoyed a flight on Tiger airways.

The Story

Jesus' Son is harrowing. It's bleaker than Junot Diaz, Johnson's world more threatening than the melancholy home lives explored by Alice Munro or Lorrie Moore. In Work, we find a momentary respite from rock bottom, although the story starts soaked in heroin. From an early morning fight with his girlfriend, the main character travels to a bar, meeting his old friend Wayne.

They drive to the riverbank and find an abandoned housing estate, a flood having turned the owners' investments into waterlogged memories. They break into a house, pry open the walls and pull the power cables away, intending to sell the copper wire for scrap.

Having gutted the house, they head to the riverbank where a boat sails past, a kite attached. On the kite, almost one hundred feet in the air is a woman, "naked except for her beautiful hair." They pause for a moment to watch the woman fly past.

After a brief visit to a woman that Wayne once knew, they head to a bar. By story's end we meet two women, each known by one of the men. By some symmetry not easily understood, the men find solace in a day that reflects their past and present, and is strangely forgiving of both.

Why it Sticks

Jesus' Son is a kaleidoscope of despair, desperation and transcendence. Though it's tough going at times, it is also strangely life affirming.

In Work we meet both Wayne and the narrator, and though they've made decisions in their lives, they come across more as lost than deficient. Put simply, Work is one of the few stories in the collection that lets Johnson's characters dream of a different type of world, that offers hope that they may one day escape their own shortcomings.

On its own, Work is a beautiful story. As part of Jesus' Son, it is a necessary part of an otherwise grim collage that is at times intense, often heartbreaking, but always immediate.