by Denis Johnson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1990
Poet and novelist Johnson (The Stars at Noon, 1986, etc.) further elaborates his disorienting vision of a cracked world in this unnerving and edgy novel--a very hip sort of postmodern Catholic fiction that keeps you off-balance with all its genre-blending and gender-bending. A Walker Percy-ish ""knight of faith"" pursues his paranoid quest-romance in the Provincetown of Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance. Far more spiritually corrupt and confused than any Percy character, however, Leonard English really seeks oblivion. A former medical-supplies salesman from Kansas, Lenny arrives on the tip of Cape Cod in the off-season to begin his part-time jobs as a graveyard D.J. and unlicensed p.i. A self-described nobody, for whom ""nothing connects,"" this failed suicide roams the Cape, ""wondering about Heaven all the time"" and pondering the mystery of the Resurrection. In a local church, he glimpses the woman of his dreams--a raven-haired beauty who happens to be a lesbian and the subject of one of his desultory investigations. Lenny's work for the elderly Ray Sands, a retired cop, always makes him feel dirty. Sands's mysterious activities for a group called the ""Truth Infantry"" feed Lenny's worst fears, as does a bizarre late-night kidnapping that leaves him worse for wear. God-crazed and faced with Hell's random fury, Lenny becomes Leanna's bedmate, though her heterosexual experiment doesn't come to fruition until one particularly weird moment when Lenny admits his darkest secret: the autoerotic consequence of his suicide attempt by hanging. When their awkward love falters, and strange events accrue, Lenny's psychosis blooms; delusions of his incarnation mount. Lenny's Second Coming finds him a cross-dressing would-be assassin of a local bishop. And while the transvestism allows him to blend into the scenery, his gun-toting lands him in the slammer--where he finds peace eternal. Johnson's jagged dialogue, elliptical phrasing, and odd-ball metaphors all serve his cool metaphysical purposes--a tension-driven detective story in which the major mystery is: God or nothingness? Readers will be surprised by demented joy in this cosmically charged fiction that combines hard-boiled theology and a redeeming wit--the perfect spiritual tonics for tough times.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1990
ISBN: 0060934662
Page Count: -
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: N/A
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1990
Categories: FICTION
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.