Drugs, Redemption, And Poetry
In eleven short, interrelated vignettes, Denis Johnson's "Jesus' Son" combines a portrayal of a life of addiction and crime with a vision of transcendence, compassion and hope. The stories are tied together by a first-person narrator who describes his addiction to drugs, alcohol, and crime and his halting steps to recovery. The stories are set in the American West and Midwest, largely in rural communities but also in Chicago, Seattle, and Phoenix. The narrator never reveals his real name; he is known only by an obscenity given to him by an acquaintance and acknowledged by the narrator as capturing his low estimation of himself.
The stories move around both in physical location and in the narrator's mind. They are highly gritty and show cheap bars, rusted cars, hospitals, detox facilities, abandoned homes, jails and police stations and more. Much of the time the narrator is high and his words move around giving a disjointed feel. Most of the characters in the book are poor frequently violent addicts or recovering addicts.
The book gives a harsh portrait of the main character and of the life of addiction. The language in the book is luminous. The narrator has a sense of his own degradation but also has a feeling of transcendence and the possibility of redeeming a wasted life. The depictions of a sordid life are infused with religious imagery and ultimate hope. For all its brevity, the book shows the relationship of seeming conflicting parts of human experience and works to draw them together through language.
Written in 1992, "Jesus' Son" seems already to have become a classic. The recognition it has received is well-deserved. Johnson (1949 -- 2017) would go on to receive the National Book Award together with other literary honors. I was glad to get to know this author and this short, visionary work.
Robin Friedman
