Jesus' Son (short story collection)
First edition
|
|
| Author | Denis Johnson |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus & Giroux |
|
Publication date
|
December 1992 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 160 |
| Preceded by | Resuscitation of a Hanged Man |
| Followed by | Already Dead: A California Gothic |
Jesus' Son is a collection of linked short stories by American author Denis Johnson.
The book takes its title from the Velvet Underground song "Heroin", and concerns the exploits of several addicts living in rural America, as they engage in drug use, petty crime and murder. The stories are linked by shared locations (such as a dive bar in small-town Iowa) and repeated imagery. They are all narrated by a troubled young man identified only as "Fuckhead" ("Emergency").
The book is famous for its seemingly chaotic narrative style, which mirrors the mental states of its narrator. In "Car Crash While Hitchhiking" Fuckhead seems to have extra-sensory perception, which allows him to experience in the present a deadly car crash that won't happen until much later in the narrative. Despite his foreknowledge, he enters the car he claims to know will inevitably crash. "Emergency" picks up with Fuckhead while he's working a job as a hospital janitor and driving around under the influence of unmitigated batches of prescription medications that he's stolen from the hospital. The orderly, with whom he takes the drug-fueled, bunny-killing trip, helps to save a man who's been stabbed in the eye by his wife (this character, Georgie, is also the one who reveals the nickname of the narrator). The book ends on a more hopeful note as the final narrator enters a recovery program and begins to hold down a stable job writing a newsletter for the residents of a nursing home.
In this story, a drug-addicted narrator recounts hitchhiking in four different vehicles, first with a Cherokee, then a salesperson, then a college student, and finally a family composed of a husband, wife, young daughter and a baby. The salesperson is drunk and shares alcohol and pills with the narrator before leaving him off to find a student who drives him until he catches a ride with the family. Eventually this vehicle is struck by another car resulting in the death of the driver of the other car. The story ends with the narrator looking back several years later, seemingly in detox, as he recounts his drug abuse, which the entire narration of the story reflects in a style of disconnect from reality.
The narrator and his friends Tom and Richard are thrust into the role of reluctant chaperons of a mute man who unexpectedly climbs into their vehicle one evening after a dance. They drive him to several locations, the narrator berating the man constantly, for he believes he isn't actually mute. Upon arriving at the last location they discover that the mute man is an ex high school football star, and now is an addict in the company of wrongdoers. This realization strikes the narrator, proving that even the most successful or popular people can still fall from grace. After they deposit the mute man at the last location, he pursues the narrator and his friends as they attempt to leave him behind. He makes it as far as grabbing the side of the car before he crashes into a stop sign. Later, they run into a man named Thatcher, who the narrator recognizes at a gas station. Thatcher is a dealer who sold the narrator bad cocaine, and the narrator proceeds to follow Thatcher to his house, brandishing his gun and spitting threats. When they break into his residence, they encounter a woman who begs them to leave and informs them that Thatcher isn't present. The narrator presses, but the woman pleads and tells them that there are only two little children in the other rooms. Upon further investigation, Tom and Richard discover that there are in fact only two little children in the house. Thatcher had climbed out of the window.
...
Wikipedia