Already Dead: A California Gothic

I read this book for the first time ages ago, during the year that my book THE YEAR OF YES takes place. My male roommate (and sometime crush) threw it at me and yelled "Oh My God! It's The Best Book I've Ever Read!" This made me both suspicious and intrigued. Zay often loves books I subsequently determine to be just too guy-ish for me. Big on the existentialists, and Beat poets, both of which I like, but in much smaller doses. In any case. I opened Already Dead, and had a hard time, as other readers have said, for about the first 100 pages. Despite a whole lot of gorgeous writing, it took me forever to read. However. By the time I got to page 101, I found my entire brain reformatted into the universe of the book. To me, that means a book is definitely worth it. The book has a lot to do with altered states of consciousness - drug-related, paranoia related, blood-loss related and even witchcraft-related (it's a California gothic, after all, and there's a coven of blonde witches), and that's how you feel as you read it. Much has been made of Johnson's fantastic short story collection Jesus' Son, and it's deserved. Already Dead drops you deeper into Johnson's strange, wonderful, technicolor world. Just when you think you're going to drown, it sends down a rope to bring you up. Just the first paragraph...stunning. ''Van Ness felt a gladness and wonder as he drove past the small isolated towns along U.S. 101 in northern California, a certain interest, a yearning, because he sensed they were places a person could disappear into. They felt like little naps you might never wake up from -- you might throw a tire and hike to a gas station and stumble unexpectedly onto the rest of your life, the people who would finally mean something to you, a woman, an immortal friend, a saving fellowship in the religion of some obscure church." It's fabulous. I mean, come on. There's a 6 foot nine inch tall guy named Frankenstein in this book, and his scene making love to the protagonist's tiny mistress is one I may never forget. I'd also recommend -in conjunction, if you'd like a few days of Northern California alternate lifestyle immersion - T.C. Boyle's Budding Prospects (Boyle is a brilliant writer. This isn't his best book, plot-wise getting a bit derailed, but it's absolutely worth a read, particularly in the company of Already Dead.)

How can you not love a novel that contains the above line of dialogue? This is a staggering, intricate, hilarious work of fiction. Even the incidentals (Red the fat horse, Navarro's conversation with Doc Schooner in Nelson Senior's house, Clarence driving in the dust storm, the whole Whitehorn episode near the end) are both funny and moving. Me anyway, I was floored. By the way, I came across the Bill Knott poem that gives this novel its plot and it is a source of wonder to me to see how one gifted writer can both celebrate and extend the work of another. Already Dead is a book for the ages.

When I read this book I found myself desperately feeling like my life resembled it far far more closely than I would have liked. Already Dead is a haunting and horrible journey where the sickening downward spiral of Nelson Fairchild's inner life is mirrored in his northern California community. Maybe it's more than that, maybe it's even that somehow Fairchild, through his possibly demonic counterpart Carl Van Ness, is at the center of this spiritual gyre that engulfs the whole coast. I don't think it's a coincidence that Van Ness's attempted suicide, which acts as a catalyst for all the later action in the book, is a drowning. The whole thing is like being pulled slowly but steadliy from beneath in a deep pool of your own cerebral juices; you can feel yourself pulling more and more of that sour liquid into your lungs as you read. So, while that might not sound like much of a reccommendation, I think any book that can make you feel that way, must be a great book. The aforementioned experience while not necessarily plesant, is not bereft of a certain ammount of humor or bemeusment as might be expected with your life flashing before your eyes; life is, after all, funny stuff. There's no denying that Already Dead is dark, that it's hard, that it does make you feel sort of dead, but it also sharpens the senses and gives a thread of clarity about what is eternal and vital; it helps you see what makes life worth the living. It does that in a very twisted way of course, but really, this is Denis Johnson, what else did we expect.

I loved this book. I bought it without having prior knowledge of the author or the subject of the story because I read two pages in the bookstore and loved the way Johnson told the story. Only the most discerning, articulate readers who have a thirst for more than predigested language will love Johnson. As far as I can tell, there are so few writers with his skill, that one should always purchase his work in hard cover for posterity. Dennis, if you read this, don't give up!

Anything Denis Johnson writes should be read with care. Some of our writers write with care. But there's nobody like him. Denis discovers the holy in the damned.