Jesus' Son Background

Jesus' Son was written by Denis Johnson and published in 1992. Johnson was an American writer, playwright, and journalist who was born in 1949 and died in 2017. This novel made him popular, as well as his other novel, Tree of Smoke, which won an award.

This book is a collection of short stories narrating the stories of several drug-addicts yet narrated by only one person. The narrator is not given a full name in the story but throughout the story he writes what he is usually called. This contemporary piece of fiction portrays the lives of many people who live in the same way the characters in the story live: drunk, lonely, lost, and many more issues.

Johnson wanted to show people a side of America not everyone sees or hears of, and tried to do that by injecting his own memories and experiences. However, he also mentioned the presence of events that happened to people he knew, whether they are close or not. He collected all these stories into a jumbled up, yet carefully crafted, novel.

The collection of short stories received many positive reviews. It is rated slightly higher than a 4 out of a 5-star rating on Goodreads. Many famous news articles and websites reviewed the book in their weekly or monthly book reviews. James McManus wrote on his New York Times book review: "No American novelist since William Burroughs has so flagrantly risked "insensitivity" in an effort to depict the pathology of addiction." He also said: "As a narrative technique, it gave a nice twisted quality," Publishers Weekly said: "But for the most part the stories are neurasthenic, as though Johnson hopes the shock value of characters fatally overdosing in the presence of lovers and friends will substitute for creativity and hard work from him." Lastly, one of Goodreads members said: "This was the book that showed me how far you could stretch your prose and still have it sound dynamite. A drug-addled mix of loosely interconnected stories, reading it is like navigating a string of dreams, both blissful and bad."