Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond

by Denis Johnson

Book Overview

"Johnson writes with a fervor that can only be described as religious. Seek is scary and beautiful and ecstatic and uncontrolled...he elevates the mundane to the sublime; he boils things down to their essence. He's simply one of the few writers around whose sentences make you shudder." --Adrienne Miller, Esquire Part political disquisition, part travel journal, part self-exploration, Seek is a collection of essays and articles in which Denis Johnson...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060930470
• ISBN13: 9780060930479
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Hippie realities underdone in our literature

That's one of the main reasons I really like Denis Johnson. He is an evolution of Jack Kerouac, minus the jazz and plus the confusion. He's a Jack Kerouac who could live a stable life and write about America after making a living on his books. Hippies comprise a large percentage of America's soulful reality. It's there you find the dead-end dreamers and romantics. Hemingway these days is in the Peace Corps or selling LSD on some parking lot. I also like the parts about Africa and Kuwait. Johnson, you can send me a postcard anytime from anywhere.

Back in Form

After the slightness of THE NAME OF THE WORLD, and the somewhat scattered ALREADY DEAD, Johnson returns to the form that made JESUS' SON such a classic in this collection of articles. The standout is hands-down the last piece on his f**cked-up experiences in Liberia. Also good are the glimpses you get into Johnson's personal life, including his marriage and subsequent honeymoon in the wilds of Alaska, where they try to pan for the gold from which they plan to fashion their wedding rings; the highly disorganized hippie festival he goes to; the bikers for Jesus; his short piece on his brief stint as a Boy Scout. If you're already a Johnson fan, SEEK is cause for celebration.

pure narrative gift

Who could resist writing that sounds like a combination of Hunter S. Thompson and Julian Barnes? These stories delight but also provoke. Despite the author's avowed stoner tendencies, the writing is always snappy: there are no excess words.

pure narrative gift

Who could resist writing that sounds like a combination of Hunter S. Thompson and Julian Barnes? These stories delight but also provoke. ... the writing is always snappy: there are no excess words.