Jesus' Son
Jesus' Son is a slim collection of linked short stories by Denis Johnson, narrated by a young man often called Fuckhead who moves through a haze of drugs, drink, and casual danger across the Midwest. The stories are short and fragmentary, marked by car crashes, hospitals, petty crime, and sudden flashes of beauty and tenderness amid the wreckage. Johnson's prose is spare and lyrical, finding strange grace in lives that are falling apart. The narrator drifts toward something like recovery by the final stories, though nothing is tidy. Published in 1992, the book became one of the most admired American story collections of its era and inspired a 1999 film. It is widely studied for its voice and its way of joining the squalid and the sublime.
What you might want to know about Jesus' Son
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Linked stories follow a drifting narrator through addiction, accidents, and strange moments of grace in the American Midwest.
Yes. A film adaptation was released in 1999, starring Billy Crudup as the narrator.
Jesus' Son was written by Denis Johnson, published in 2002 by Picador.
Jesus' Son is 208 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Jesus' Son takes most readers 3 to 5 hours to finish.
Jesus' Son is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.