Train Dreams

Denis Johnson has this lovely way of writing that sometimes sneaks up on you in its Americanness. Some sentences just jump out of books and clobber you with their greatness, making you rock back out of the story to appreciate said beauty. There's an art to creating something lovely that lets you keep going and not drive off the road from distraction, so to speak.

It is a quiet book, largely about the life of a man after he loses his wife and child in a tragedy. Despite working on the railroad's trek west, Granier ends up living solitarily, appreciating the little red dog or fighting back the encroaching wilderness. Mr. Johnson truly has a knack for dialogue that lives and breathes, which I consider to be a true accomplishment.

Perhaps, there is something very American not just about the language, but also about the book. After Granier's Aunt and Uncle take him in, he lives amongst his extended family, never quite belonging. He finds a true home with his wife and child, but then spins into loneliness, still following a somewhat nomadic career until his body can no longer handle the work. Americans have became lonelier as they shifted away from living in extended family clusters. “Conquering” America's West did mean giving up sitting around the hearth with your kin, but was it worth it? For Granier specifically, would he have found a woman he loved as much as Gladys? We'll never know, but Johnson's novella is definitely worth a read, coming in at 3.4 stars for me.