An accident that occurred while hitchhiking
two men
jewel
Dundon
Day
emergency room
tainted marriage
another man
Happy Hour
A strong hand seen at Seattle General Hospital
Beverly Hospital

The scar left by fin-de-siècle America on world literature
But salvation is found only in the most terrible places.

In 2017, literary critic Kevin Zambrano said:
“It’s no wonder that 25 years after its publication, The Son of Jesus has become a staple in writing workshops across America.
The voice of this book is that of a completely free spirit, a spirit that can say anything.” In this very sense, 『The Son of Jesus』 is evaluated as one of the reference points for Americans who want to become novelists, and it also draws endless admiration and praise from general readers.
Published in 1992, this short story collection quickly established itself as a great legacy of late 20th-century American literature.
Perhaps the greatest appeal of this work is that it encapsulates the virtues of 20th-century American Southern Gothic novels.
Like a bullet ready to be fired, the energy condensed in “The Son of Jesus” is truly quiet and intense.

The eleven stories in this book are connected into a single worldview through an unnamed narrator, but the narrative is largely disorganized due to the emotional flaws of the narrator, who was a drug addict and a wanderer.
This confusion and the direction it points to are reminiscent of the aforementioned genre, namely the American Southern Gothic novel, typified by Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner.
Absurdity slowly seeps into the miserable and dry world, and the characters suddenly discover the absurdity that has seeped into them both inside and outside.
Absurdity, a power or sensibility that exists outside the language or logic of this world.
The characters in the novel come to regard the unknown energy that comes from outside their consciousness (usually without their awareness) as a clue to heading out of reality.

Of course, neither the speaker nor the author tells us where the escape is headed.
Because they don't know either.
The narrator of "The Son of Jesus" pauses in action or thought every time he turns his gaze outside, and through that pause, he allows the readers to act on their own before the door of the unknown.
Many readers of this novel have claimed that The Son of Jesus is closely connected with salvation, perhaps because they find a religious nature in this humility.
Critic Kang Deok-gu says that "The Son of Jesus" is made up of holes in the body (tears pouring out of eye sockets, eyes gouged out by a knife, bullet holes in the face and stomach, etc.), and that the narrator or author of the novel himself glimpses the saved territory beyond through these holes.
Of course, none of these people attain salvation.
According to the biblical prophet John the Baptist, humans are not beings who can create or capture salvation.
All we can do is say that the time will come and wait for that day to come.
We detect signs of some miracle in the novel (e.g. J.
D. Salinger's masterpiece short stories are nothing less than a collection of testimonies about him), they come to us as they came, as a mystery, they stay with us for a while and then disappear.

A masterpiece that encapsulates the virtues pursued by American short stories.
The beauty that only a dry and empty world can show

Meanwhile, in terms of style, "The Son of Jesus" can be considered a culmination of 20th-century American short story literature.
Even John Updike completed his praise of Dennis Johnson by simply comparing him to the great masters of American literature.
“Tom Jones, Raymond Carver… the flashy economy and aggressive minimalism of early Hemingway…” Of course, the list could be much longer.
When Johnson sketches the lives of desperate commoners or eccentrics in a single breath, revealing their rough outlines, he brings to mind the heyday of Carver, Hemingway, and Flannery O'Connor, and when he shows characters with a mental world detached from reality jumping helplessly into that absurdity, he reminds me of J.
D. You can feel Salinger's gaze.

'Sparkling economy and aggressive minimalism'.
Instead of a feast of beautiful details and gorgeous words, readers are immersed in imaginary images born from omissions and gaps. These images, which lack precise forms, connect with the aforementioned thematic consciousness of the work, further enhancing their destructive power.
Like a pianist who maximizes the rhythmic sense between sound and space by abandoning the flashy overtones and resonances and pursuing a dry sound, Dennis Johnson exquisitely balances the semi-formal energy that blooms from the written sentences and the spaces in his works.
The magical sense of balance in this collection of short stories, which erases as much as possible while still firmly establishing the framework of the work, and allows the reader's soul to add its own flesh of beauty between those bones, is purely admirable from a technical standpoint.
This small book will expand endlessly in your mind through countless blank spaces, a process that will provide novel lovers with an unforgettable experience, reaching heights that cannot be described in words.

[Continuing with the recommendation]

A bizarre yet addictive collection of short stories.
But unlike most novels dealing with marginalized people, "The Son of Jesus" is original and, moreover, breathtakingly beautiful.
It's fascinating and painful.
As bleak as Dostoevsky, as passionate and frightening as Edgar Allan Poe.
- The New York Times (Jim Lewis, author)

A restrained beauty and a profoundness bordering on religion.
- Entertainment Weekly

It seems like a building built to last, in a somewhat mysterious way.
- Newsweek