Finished reading: Train Dreams by Denis Johnson 📚

It’s slow-paced, sad, and atmospheric. Every page has a sentence that stops you, makes you reread it, highlight it, or look away from the page to ponder and let your mind build the scene and absorb the meaning. A really gifted writer. Time is compressed in this Novella that covers the protagonist’s full life. Yet you don’t feel shortchanged; you don’t want more. You have walked alongside Robert Grainier; you understand him in a way a friend would. When this short story ends, you are left to dwell on the meaning, if there is one, and wish Robert all the peace in the world.

It feels like every word counts. Nothing extra, just beautiful minimal prose that tells a story of a man’s life. I really enjoyed this book and give it 5 stars, but I can also see how it’s not for everyone. I looked at the average rating on StoryGraph, and it’s 3.8 compared to my solid 5.

This was my first book by Denis Johnson, and I will be reading more of him. I have already added books to the queue: Seek, Jesus’ Son, and Tree of Smoke.