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A Novel
by Denis Johnson
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.
"[This] is the story of people who slip helplessly into their own worst nightmares... . 'Angels' is a terrifying book, a mixture of poetry and obscenity ... whether the characters are conversing with a dark angelor ordering a platter of french fries, they are people who can't be ignored.Mr. Johnson has written a dazzling and savage first novel." —New York Times Book Review
"Acute, muscular, and quite relentless, Johnson, who is already a recognized poet, is about to write a major novel.... In this book there is the metaphysical bite, the eye for terrible detail, the grasp of character." —Times Literary Supplement
This information about Angels was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Denis Johnson is the author of The Name of the World, Already Dead, Jesus' Son, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man, Fiskadoro, The Stars at Noon, and Angels. His poetry has been collected in the volume The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly. He is the recipient of a Lannan Fellowship and a Whiting Writer's Award, among many other honors for his work. He lives in northern Idaho.
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