February 18th, 2013
ggantz
“I really enjoy writing novels. It’s like the ocean. You can just build a boat and take off.”—Denis Johnson

“I really enjoy writing novels. It’s like the ocean. You can just build a boat and take off.”—Denis Johnson

Reblogged from THRE▲NGLE
78 notes·
lit writing books Denis Johnson
August 22nd, 2012
justinhargett
Zoom unypl: “Train Dreams,” by Denis Johnson  Borrow I Read 

unypl:

“Train Dreams,” by Denis Johnson 

Borrow I Read 

Reblogged from Underground New York Public Library
112 notes·
Denis Johnson Train Dreams Candid Camera
July 25th, 2012
eliannakan

Illustrated Essay About Denis Johnson

I belatedly stumbled upon this illustrated essay about Denis Johnson by Brooklyn-based illustrator Nathan Gelgud on BAM’s blog and loved it. I too, like its illustrator, recently attempted to read Jesus’ Son out loud to my parents while on vacation. Apparently “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” wasn’t their idea of pleasant beach reading…

DenisJohnson1DenisJohnson2DenisJohnson3DenisJohnson4

Read the rest of Gelgud’s essay here.

lit brooklyn academy of music denis johnson books illustration
July 10th, 2012
awaagner
Utter objectivity, however, is not only impossible when judging literature, it’s not exactly desirable. Fiction involves trace elements of magic; it works for reasons we can explain and also for reasons we can’t. If novels or short-story collections could be weighed strictly in terms of their components (fully developed characters, check; original voice, check; solidly crafted structure, check; serious theme, check) they might satisfy, but they would fail to enchant. A great work of fiction involves a certain frisson that occurs when its various components cohere and then ignite. The cause of the fire should, to some extent, elude the experts sent to investigate.
Michael Cunningham (The New Yorker’s Page-Turner Blog) on the Pulitzer Prize jury’s decision to include Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell, and The Pale King by David Foster Wallace as finalists. Part 2 of Cunningham’s piece will appear on Page-Turner today.
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lit books the new yorker page-turner michael cunningham pulitzer prize train dreams denis johnson
May 31st, 2012
eliannakan

This is the final post in a week-long miniseries celebrating National Short Story Month. Our final featured collection is Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son.

The first time I read this story, “Work,” its first lines stopped me, caught me off guard, bade me to re-read. I liked its directness and was immediately intrigued by the world Johnson was describing. Jesus’ Son was assigned reading for a creative writing course I was taking in college. Inspired by the way in which Johnson juxtaposes the raw with the strikingly poetic and surreal, I decided I too would write about the underbelly of the town where I grew up. Unfortunately, my fixation on my first love and cliché inclination towards all things sentimental—and absence of any serious drug addiction—resulted in terrible short stories that paled in comparison to the source of their inspiration. I still think Johnson does it best.

10 notes·
lit short stories prose denis johnson reading books jesus' son
May 24th, 2012
ggantz
Don’t take our word for it …  Yesterday, The Diane Rehm Show invited The Washington Post book critic and fiction editor Ron Charles on the show along with NPR’s Michele Norris and historian Eric Rutkow to discuss Denis Johnson’s novella Train Dreams for their Readers’ Review segment.  For Ron Charles, this was the first book he’d read for fun in 15 years and found it “starling, moving, really remarkable.” Michele Norris “loved it” and said it had the feeling of a “great exhale … a gale force wind.” For Eric Rutkow, it was “remarkable how many of the main themes in American history could show up in a such a small number of pages …”  You can listen to the show here.  Denis Johnson is the author of six novels, three collections of poetry, and one book of reportage. His novel Tree of Smoke was the 2007 winner of the National Book Award. Train Dreams is an epic in miniature, one of his most evocative and poignant fictions. It is the story of Robert Grainier, a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century—-an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime. Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West, this novella by the National Book Award—winning author of Tree of Smoke captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life.

Don’t take our word for it … 

Yesterday, The Diane Rehm Show invited The Washington Post book critic and fiction editor Ron Charles on the show along with NPR’s Michele Norris and historian Eric Rutkow to discuss Denis Johnson’s novella Train Dreams for their Readers’ Review segment. 

For Ron Charles, this was the first book he’d read for fun in 15 years and found it “starling, moving, really remarkable.” Michele Norris “loved it” and said it had the feeling of a “great exhale … a gale force wind.” For Eric Rutkow, it was “remarkable how many of the main themes in American history could show up in a such a small number of pages …” 

You can listen to the show here. 

Denis Johnson is the author of six novels, three collections of poetry, and one book of reportage. His novel Tree of Smoke was the 2007 winner of the National Book Award.

Train Dreams is an epic in miniature, one of his most evocative and poignant fictions. It is the story of Robert Grainier, a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century—-an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime. Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West, this novella by the National Book Award—winning author of Tree of Smoke captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life.

2 notes·
Denis Johnson books lit podcast WAMU Diane Rehm Show NPR
May 9th, 2012
awaagner

Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams: The Most Portable of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize Finalists. 

Copies of this portable paperback wonder will be available in stores on May 22.

12 notes·
lit books train dreams denis johnson pulitzer
April 17th, 2012
darinkeesler
Pictured above: the real-life Princess of Pulchritude (as featured in Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist). “On the Stage—Living Models Featuring Miss Galveston Winner of the Famous Pageant of Pulchritude”  ”[…] melting with lust for the Queen of Galveston and desiring to breathe her atmosphere, to inhale the fumes of sex, sin, and pulchritude. It would kill him! Kill him to see it, kill him to be seen!” From Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2011. pages 108, 110-11).

Pictured above: the real-life Princess of Pulchritude (as featured in Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist).

“On the Stage—Living Models Featuring

Miss Galveston

Winner of the Famous Pageant of Pulchritude”

 ”[…] melting with lust for the Queen of Galveston and desiring to breathe her atmosphere, to inhale the fumes of sex, sin, and pulchritude. It would kill him! Kill him to see it, kill him to be seen!”

From Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2011. pages 108, 110-11).

7 notes·
Princess of Pulchritude Pulitzer lit Train Dreams quotations prose lol Denis Johnson
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