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Loading... Angels: A Novelby Denis Johnson
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Angels is Johnson's first novel, and perhaps closest in tone to his acclaimed Jesus' Son. I'm at a loss to explain just why Johnson's work seems so unique and compelling. For one thing, he uses simple language in a poetic manner. But his ability to shine a sharp yet warm light on the lives of strung-out losers is inexplicable (at least to me). While at times painful to read, I found Angels to be beautiful rather than depressing. (  ) gabebaker | Oct 27, 2009 |  Dark and relentlessly brilliant. (  ) zenosbooks | Apr 11, 2009 | This book does down-and-out no-good characters like few authors can manage. The prose just pops off the page and sparkles with realism, depression, and loneliness in a way that's both gut-wrenching and impossible to put down. Not for the faint of heart, this book describes the lives of drugged-out characters on the edges of society in gritty detail with no happy endings to be found. Yet, somehow, I still cared about these unlikeable and basically lousy characters. An impressive first novel by this author; I'll definitely look for his other work. Copies of this book are hard to come by, but worth tracking down if you can. ( ) msjoanna | Mar 24, 2008 | Johnson's "Car Crash While Hitchhiking" is one of my favorite short stories of all time. Angels doesn't quite measure up to that, but what could? Still pretty good. (  ) billmcn | Aug 6, 2007 | Johnson's brilliant debut involves a road trip to hell. Like Marilynne Robinson in a way, Johnson writes a deeply poetic prose, and the climax is heart-wrenching. ( ) RodneyWelch | May 17, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
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| Book description |
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The most critically acclaimed, and first, of Denis Johnson's novels, Angels puts Jamie Mays -- a runaway wife toting along two kids -- and Bill Houston -- ex-Navy man, ex-husband, ex-con -- on a Greyhound Bus for a dark, wild ride cross country. Driven by restless souls, bad booze, and desperate needs, Jamie and Bill bounce from bus stations to cheap hotels as they ply the strange, fascinating, and dangerous fringe of American life. Their tickets may say Phoenix, but their inescapable destination is a last stop marked by stunning violence and mind-shattering surprise.
Denis Johnson, known for his portraits of America's dispossessed, sets off literary pyrotechnics on this highway odyssey, lighting the trek with wit and a personal metaphysics that defiantly takes on the world.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:09 -0400)
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