By the time of his death in 2017, Denis Johnson had long been acknowledged as a contemporary master of the short story, worthy of comparison to latter-day luminaries such as Alice Munro, George Saunders, and Lydia Davis. From his 1992 breakthrough collection, Jesus' Son, to his late-career novels, Tree of Smoke and Train Dreams, he'd succeeded in enchanting — and disturbing — a whole generation of book-lovers with his bleak, beautiful tales of life at the ragged edges of America. Reading The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, it is hard not to suspect that Johnson's stories will continue to haunt many more generations to come.

For those unfamiliar with this author, the world of these stories will feel like a glamorously macabre new territory. Johnson's America is a brutal, seductive continent, governed by corruption, plagued by addiction, obsessed with sin. His ...