"How quickly would a person's life progress along its lines if he followed every impulse as if started from God? How much more quickly would he be healed? Or how much faster destroyed?"

Second read. ( )

I've read two other Denis Johnson books - JESUS' SON and TREE OF SMOKE, both excellent. RESUSCITATION OF A HANGED MAN, probably one of his lesser known works, is a decidedly different kinda animal. It gives us the story of thirty-ish Lennie English, who arrives in Provincetown on Cape Cod in the winter of 1980, driving up from Kansas, where he recently attempted to hang himself, obviously unsuccessfully (or maybe not). Yeah, it's THAT strange. A mix of lapsed Catholicism, detective story, sexual intrigue and kinkiness, right wing paramilitary groups, etc. - all that stuff is in here. As English tries to start his life anew, he finds work as a Radio DJ and tech, AND as assistant to a retired cop/private investigator (who also owns the radio station). And he falls in love with Leanna, a gay - or bisexual - woman, who actually gives him a tumble.

Lennie finds himself descending by stages deeper and deeper into apparent insanity. After a conversation with a radio guest who does 'auras,' for example, Lennie learns he has a 'golden' aura, and considers -

"... it was ridiculous that anyone would go around imagining a golden light shining out of his chest. But he knew he'd probably start doing it."

Because of Lennie's tortured relationship with his Catholic faith, one can't help but think of the usual Catholic images of Jesus and His glowing Sacred Heart.

And later, as his uneasiness and madness grow, Lennie tries to write a note to Leanna, saying -

"Many of the feelings I've been having lately, breaking down and crying when alone, the sense of a cloud between me and God, the intuition that now, behind the cloud, is the time of faith ..."

The story culminates in the spring and early summer, as Lennie tries to track down a missing person, traveling up into New Hampshire and back, continuing to unravel mentally and emotionally all the way. He arrives back in Provincetown just as the summer season is beginning, filling the town with hordes of colorful gays and transvestites. Donning some of Leanna's clothes, he joins the parade, but with a very dark purpose, as the story rushes toward its page-turning climax and denouement.

I am still puzzling over the final pages, and probably will for some time, but I was caught up by this book, and am so sad that Denis Johnson is no longer with us. But I know there is a new posthumous story collection due out this Spring, and I will definitely be reading it. This book? Excellent. I loved it!

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )

After attempting suicide (for no particular reason) and failing, semi-tortured soul Leonard English moves from Kansas to Provincetown, Massachusetts to take a hybrid job as an investigator and overnight radio announcer. His boss is Ray Sands, a retired detective who owns both the radio station and investigation agency. English falls in love with Leanna, a lesbian, when he is tasked with following her lover. English’s parents are dead, and when he thinks he is losing Leanna he continues to seek love and answers as he tracks an artist who has disappeared. Resuscitation of a Hanged Man sizzles with originality, hope and redemption. ( )

I got to page 135 and finally gave up. I wanted to do almost anything but trudge through this story.