- Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: HarperPerennial; 1st, First Edition edition (Jun 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 006092909X
- ISBN-13: 978-0060929091
- Product Dimensions: 20.4 x 13.8 x 2.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 180,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Nelson Fairchild, Jr., has a Thriving Marijuana business in California's lush redwood country -- and some serious problems. His marriage has gone to pot, and he may lose his land, cash, and crop in the divorce settlement. What's more, in need of some quick cash, Nelson had foolishly agreed to smuggle $90,000 worth of cocaine through customs for Harry Lally, Jr., a major player in a drug syndicate. Chickening out just before bringing the drugs through, he flushes the powder. Now Lally wants him dead, and two goons are hot on his trail. Desperate, terrified, and alone, for Nelson, there may be only one way out.
Denis Johnson's biggest and most complex book yet, Already Dead is "a fiercely poetic tour de force.... It's also a hell of a read" (Details).
The highly acclaimed novel from one of today's most fascinating writers, Already Dead "offers just about everything that thriller buyers look for: drugs, booze, sex, murderous violence, a soupcon of the supernatural and a large cast of enterprising psychopaths" (Time).
"Mr. Johnson writes beautifully, with energy and grace, as though his hands were on fire and his head caked in ice.... Every page boasts exhilarating flights of Mr. Johnson's prose". -- New York Observer
"What makes this book impossible to put down ... is the operatic grandeur of Johnson's prose, which is sometimes beautiful and often hypnotic". -- People --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
‘In sustained breathtaking language of genuine poetic authority it depicts the collapse of the last American frontier. The characters inhabiting that frontier are strange, ghostly, complex figures – all believable, all recognizable – and it is Denis Johnson’s accomplishment here to have penetrated, understood and represented the extraordinary weirdness and richness of their minds. A grim tale of revenge snakes through it all, lending tension and momentum to this wildly beautiful story of a terminal landscape and its population of lost and drifting souls’ Patrick McGrath ‘Already Dead is California noir transcended by inspiration. It’s harrowing and hilarious, tough without trying to be, purely and beautifully written. There isn’t an American voice I love listening to more than Denis Johnson’s’ Michael Herr ‘Already Dead is a novel like no other, a wild ride through an imagination endlessly surprising and darkly profound in its apprehensions of our condition. From his fearsome inventions and singular voice, Johnson fashions religious art of the order of Brighton Rock and the paintings of Bosch and Breughel, yet shot through with revelations that startle us into laughter – even, though we hardly believe it’s happening, into something like hope. Already Dead is a novel to welcome and celebrate’ Tobias Wolff ‘Once Denis Johnson gets his hooks into you – it takes about two sentences – it’s pretty much impossible to stop reading’ New York Times Book Review
--This text refers to an alternate
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First Sentence
"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." Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
"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." Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
another gem from the greatest living writer in the world. california redwood forests, new age mysticism, wannabe suicide rescued from water, rolling fog, comic hitmen, a witch, father-son torment plus johnson's trademark, simple, stark prose style which just rolls and riffs on one ghostly, poetic sentence after another. the structure is flawless, the switching of voices and use of flashback well executed...this novel has it all...quite brilliant.. -Nick Johnstone
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Not sure what Johnston was up to here. The similarities to Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance are huge: marijuana patches, seances, spirits, adultry, murder. Paying homage? Except the setting is the west coast instead of the east. The results are the same; is this the point? Really enjoyed it though. Amazing that he took more pages than Mailer!
Format:Paperback
This was the first Denis Johnson novel I read and, Tree of Smoke and all, for me it is still the best. It is hard to know where to start with a novel in which everything is done so beautifully. For one thing, DJ seems to have a particular affinity for the California coastline he describes. The landscape is always alive and changing, full of rolling mists and sudden losses of visibility. For another, the central characters - while they are enigmatic, to say the least - have a strange and magical clarity to them. But most of all, this is a novel that takes extraordinary risks and comes up with a solution to them all. There are so many disparate elements, bizarre motivations and mystical visions, as well as the ranges in register between the comic criminal types, the wonderfully flaky hippies and the beautiful drunk who stands at the heart of the book. The narrator rambles as well as Kerouac but somehow, at the same time, keeps it as tight as the Delillo of White Noise and The Names, although the closest direct comparison would probably be Pynchon's Vineland. The denouement is like an optimistic American riposte to Dostoyevsky - and the whole thing is full of subtle humour and a generosity of spirit.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not even one star - none.
I forced myself through the first twenty pages. There was nothing in it of human concern. Different consciousnesses springing out of the author's tangled mind. Read more
Published on 5 Mar 2000 by ivbrown@cybercable.fr
I was "Already Dead" by the time I finished
Johnson at times has a poetic voice and something of a flair for atmosphere, but 448 pages of lowlifes doing drugs, practicing dime-store witchcraft and plotting murders? Read more
Published on 24 Jun 1999
Entertaining, Original
One of the best books I have read in the last year or two. Six stars.
Published on 7 May 1999
Not His Best Work
DJ is in Jesus Son at the top of his game, his prose angellic, his stories compelling and concise. Already Dead starts out strong but it is as if DJ has not yet mastered the long... Read more
Published on 6 Nov 1998
A book tht didn't excite me but still slightlly interesting
Denis Johnsons Already Dead is a very not interesting read for me although it did have some exciting topics, from drugs, to witch craft and everything else that is evil in... Read more
Published on 22 Oct 1998
Too much tripping
This is NOT brain candy material. Johnson's synapses must look like the LA Freeway on a bad day. The book is sprawling in a bad way. Read more
Published on 12 Oct 1998
Absolutely wonderful book
Anyone who says that this "might be the worst book I have ever read"... is definitely on crack... Johnson's style has only gotten more refined over the years... Read more
Published on 26 Mar 1998
Fantastic poetry
Not as intriguing as his short stories or even his poetry, but it still is an amazing book, nonetheless. Read more
Published on 10 Oct 1997
This Might be the Worse Book I've Ever Read
Whatever you do, do not attempt to read this book. It's terrible. It's a chore just to try to follow along. Read more
Published on 10 Oct 1997
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