“I’m not the type to trudge along. I’m the type to come shooting off the block, get twenty yards ahead of everybody else, and go stumbling and sprawling off onto the sidelines with a collapsed lung.”
~“The Starlight of Idaho”
Denis Johnson's stunning, posthumous collection of short stories touches on weighty themes of mortality and nostalgia, but does so with a winking nod and a dose of self-deprecation that makes these tools irresistible.
“My Grandma puts it that Cass if you keep drinking your babies will come out crosseyed, and you’ll end up buried in a strange town with your name spelled wrong on your grave.”
~“The Starlight of Idaho”
"The Largesse of the Sea Maiden" is highlighted for me by "The Starlight of Idaho" and "Triumph Over the Grave," but there's something within each of these five stories for everyone. Johnson is at the top of his game, with his traditional musical prose merging with absorbing narratives.
“I note that I’ve lived longer in the past, now, than I can expect to live in the future. I have more to remember than I have to look forward to. Memory fades, not much of the past stays, and I wouldn’t mind forgetting a lot more of it.”
~“The Largesse of the Sea Maiden”
The brilliant Johnson toys with ideas of religion and legacy, ultimately delivering a work that has to rank among the finest short-story sets in the history of American literature -- and a moving treasure offered just after his death.
“What do you want? I said.
“All of you is mine already, he said. So what difference does it make what I want?
“I said, Are you a messenger of God?
“Worse, he said.
“I said, What could be worse than a messenger of God?”
~“The Starlight of Idaho”
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