From the rather astute New York Times review:
Johnson has always been an elusive figure, one of the last of the marginal masters. He’s not a recluse, but he’s not out humping his ego, either... More important, it has often seemed as if the books themselves — there have been six novels, a book of short stories and one of plays, three volumes of poetry and a collection of journalism — have bloomed spontaneously from the secret fissures that crisscross Americana: jail cells, bad neighborhoods, bus stations, cheap frame houses in the fields beyond the last streetlight. They’re full of deprived souls in monstrous situations, hapless pilgrims on their way to their next disaster. But unlike most books about the dispossessed, they’re original (how strange it feels to use that word these days, but it fits), and what’s more, deliriously beautiful — ravishing, painful; as desolate as Dostoyevsky, as passionate and terrifying as Edgar Allan Poe.
The story I, personally, like to tell about him takes place in Flagstaff when I was about 14 or 15. I recognized him from his dust jacket photo, standing beside me at a booksellers table outside the lecture hall where he was about to speak. I picked up a copy of Jesus’ Son, though I already had a well worn copy at home, and asked him to sign it. He refused at first. Because, he said, he didn’t want me reading it. “You’re too young for this. There are bad things in here. Not for little girls.” I said it was too late; I’d already read it twice over. He seemed simultaneously disappointed and pleased. He shook his head at me while he signed the title page. Made some comment I’ve now forgotten about corrupting small town youth. Told me to try and be more careful with what I read next.
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