My latest random read was Angels by Denis Johnson (1989), another one of Josh's books. Apparently the random book generator is much more enamored with his books than mine, because three out of my last four reads have been Josh books, and I just peaked at what the next read will be and it is a Josh book too. Luckily my man has good taste in books or this system would be a bust.Angels is Johnson's first novel, and it is wonderful. I read his books Jesus' Son and Already Dead a few years ago and enjoyed them, but this one is on a whole other level. It follows a woman who just left her husband with her two kids in tow, the man she meets on a bus, and his brothers and mother. Everyone in this book is on the verge of either completely falling apart or finally getting it all together. They travel across the country on the bus from California to Pittsburgh, to Chicago, and finally to Phoenix. The ending of the book is crushingly hopeful and ultimately inevitable. I wish I was still reading it.
And isn't the cover great? This is the original paperback cover, and I couldn't find a big enough version on the web so I scanned ours. Those tail-lights are perfect.
1 comment:
Hi, Angels is probably my favorite novel ever. I got to your blog via library thing. I thought you'd like to know that the Vintage cover isn't the original; there was a mass-market edition (which I own) that has a great cover too. It's b/w and shows Jamie with her kids at night in front of a bus station. If I ever get around to it, I'll scan it into library thing.
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