Angels: A Novel
by Denis Johnson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Denis JohnsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-04-30
ISBN: 0060988827
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Angels: A Novel
Book Review: Resuscitation of a gassed man
Summary: 5 Stars
There was one thing I completely neglected to remember about Bill Houston while reading Mister Johnson's magnificent Tree of Smoke so I read it a second time and there it was again, larger than life: this same dude was already dead by the end of Johnson's first novel. I remember reading Angels years ago and thinking hey wait just a dang minute now. As far as I can tell Bill didn't even make it into Vietnam in the new book but stayed out on the periphery of global events prior to coming home to work on and off in Phoenix in the late sixties. I read the alternately stunning and lulling description of him pulling the night shift in the cement factory and decided then and there to go back to his debut and final disappearance up the pipe in Angels--an especially lovely and heartbreaking re-read after Tree of Smoke, I can't even begin to tell you. James is here too but just barely--this is mostly the story of Bill and Jamie. Burris is definitely a presence though--can't you just picture this funny feller in Tree of Smoke, right at the start of that first phone call home, Bill in Honolulu talking to James?
"His little brother Burris stood in the drive with a finger in one of his ears, peering down the barrel of a cap pistol while he pulled the trigger repeatedly."
Angels heralded a poet trying on prose for the first time. Not exactly unapparent, I'd have to say--about the poetry I mean. Everything Johnson does right in any case is still here: the exit interview Jamie has with her certified overseers even goes as far as the word Oops. And how about Burris driving with one hand pressed to the radio, frantically switching stations every time somebody started talking? Amen to that. The writing in Angels, if you allow it, throws some deeply satisfying shapes. Tree of Smoke won a prize and attracted the attention of a lot of neophytes and literalists who thought maybe Mister Johnson was interested only in the straight dope about a war they might be expected to know a thing or two about. Sigh. These witless unsuspenders of disbelief, bleating at this great book with bogus displeasure, bewailing every conceivable failure except their own to thoughtfully and patiently read it. Spare me please from these tedious and prating dilettantes--suckers for the facts of life apparently, not the fiction. No wonder I'm back here with Angels and the original high old times. Remember Bill and the cigarette lighter bursting unaccountably into flames in his hand? The poor fella didn't know which way to turn.
Summary of Angels: A Novel
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.
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