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Already Dead: A California Gothic
 
 
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Already Dead: A California Gothic (Paperback)

~ (Author) "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..." (more)
Key Phrases: Van Ness, Nelson Fairchild, Point Arena (more...)
3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
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Already Dead: A California Gothic + Angels: A Novel + Jesus' Son: Stories
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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this black comedy of Wagnerian proportions, Nelson Fairchild, a wealthy Californian, is also a professional marijuana farmer with strong ties to the counterculture. Fairchild meets his nemesis in Carl Van Ness, a psychotic drifter obsessed with Nietzsche. Fairchild has it all, and Van Ness is going to take it from him. In a moral sense, Van Ness is "already dead"; his soul has left his body, and a demon has moved in. Johnson's first work of fiction since Jesus' Son (LJ 11/1/92) covers the same territory as T.C. Boyle's horticultural classic Budding Prospects (LJ 4/15/84), but this is a much darker and more disturbing work. The pace is excruciatingly slow, the structure sloppy, and the huge cast of weirdos unwieldy, but Johnson's druggy prose is simply gorgeous. This work will do little to change his reputation as a cult novelist, but Johnson's fans will recognize the book as a worthy successor to Angels (LJ 8/83), his astonishing debut novel. Recommended for most serious fiction collections.?Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch., Los Angeles
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Johnson's northern California is a gothic land peopled by the emotionally damaged, the walking wounded, veterans of wars and drugs and drug deals gone bad; it is a coast inhabited by real spirits and lost souls, madmen and hitmen. With his noir premise--a pot grower hires a drifter to murder his wife--poet and novelist Johnson weaves an intricate tale of the intertwined lives of more than a dozen denizens of Mendocino County, California. Shifting perspectives and jumps in chronology contribute to a hallucinatory narrative that parallels the borderline psychoses of a majority of the book's characters. Johnson's strengths lie in his lyrical descriptions of the Pacific Coast and the surprising depth he evokes in his character development. Nelson Fairchild Jr., whose first-person narration is the centerpiece of Already Dead, is a Nietzche-quoting paranoid, a grower of marijuana who really is being hounded by a couple of hired guns. Fairchild enlists the assistance of his partner, Clarence, for protection, while Navarro, a displaced cop, finds himself caught up in the insanity brought on by Fairchild's misdeeds. Throughout, the omnipresent scent of violence grows more and more pungent. Reminiscent of the work of Robert Stone and Jim Harrison. Benjamin Segedin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 19, 1998)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 006092909X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0060929091
  • Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #477,830 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Denis Johnson
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Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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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
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Van Ness, Nelson Fairchild, Point Arena, Harry Lally, Anchor Bay, San Francisco, Lost Coast, Sheep Queen, Coast Highway, Donna Winslow, Officer Navarro, Winona Fairchild, West Point, Gualala Hotel, Wilhelm Frankheimer, Mendocino County, Shipwreck Road, Clarence Meadows, Joe Hopeless, Northern California, William Fairchild, Big Chief, Carla Frizelli, Full Sails, Gualala River
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This book cites 17 books:
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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Already Dead: A California Gothic
55% buy the item featured on this page:
Already Dead: A California Gothic 3.5 out of 5 stars (41)
$11.96
Jesus' Son: Stories
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Jesus' Son: Stories 4.5 out of 5 stars (98)
$9.36
Angels: A Novel
14% buy
Angels: A Novel 4.3 out of 5 stars (24)
$9.35
Fiskadoro
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Customer Reviews

41 Reviews
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 (10)
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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (41 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Shades of Ken Kesey, January 21, 2001
By A. Hickman (Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria) - See all my reviews
Having read and enjoyed Denis Johnson's collection of loosely connected short stories, "Jesus' Son," I was excited to find a remaindered copy of his novel, "Already Dead" at the bookstore. I had pegged Johnson as a minimalist on the basis of "Jesus' Son," a relatively quick read, but this more recent offering ran to over 430 pages. It took some hundred pages to get a handle on the plot, but once the expository smoke had cleared and I had acclimated myself to Johnson's cast of quirky characters, the book began to take hold of my imagination. The story involves a young man, Nelson Fairchild, the scion of a wealthy North California family, who makes a pact with the "devil" (in the form of a suicidal but otherwise underdrawn phantom named Carl Van Ness) to kill his wife, Winona, who stands between him and his inheritance. Other characters, including John Navarro, a police officer transplanted from the killing fields of L.A. to bucolic coastal Northern California, and Clarence Meadows, Fairchild's partner in a marijauna farm, weave in and out of the narrative haze, but with limited impact on the reader. The conclusion is less than satisfying, but I remain impressed by Johnson himself. As a stylist he demonstrates an uncanny grasp of contemporary idiom, which includes a killer vocabulary (he added both "jactitation" and "trigetour" to my humble lexicon). "Already Dead" appears to owe something to another author whose locus is the American West Coast, Ken Kesey, in the epic sense of "Sometimes a Great Notion" and in the surreal, stream-of-consciousness of both that novel and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Kesey's muse burned out early; I hope that Johnson will continue to develop as an artist, next time in the service of a more powerful story.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Another work of excellence by a master of surrealist fiction, September 7, 1999
By A Customer
I, too, am bewildered, and more than a little amused, by the dismissive (and ultimately insubstantial) negative comments of other readers. How can one read this book and not be impressed? Agreed, this was not Johnson's best work, but it should be obvious to any thoughtful reader that this is a gifted writer, and that this novel--like each of Johnson's in its own way--is unique and thought-provoking and, yes, compelling. Those who are "bored" with this novel should probably not tax their poor brain cells too much. For them, a little friendly advice: Stick to Grisham or Clancy. "Already Dead" is neither "Jesus' Son" nor "Angels" nor "Fiskadoro"--but then, asking him to repeatedly crank out more of the same is a little like complaining that Dylan refuses to keep re-writing "Like a Rolling Stone." Johnson takes huge risks with each outing and obviously intentionally avoids the mainstream--and admittedly this novel is not perfect. But it undoubtedly ranks among the top five or six literary works of 1997-98. An excellent work: simultaneously funny, bizarre, stunning, off-beat, and hallucinatory--in other words, typical Johnson.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent spiritual noir, February 9, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Already Dead: A California Gothic (Hardcover)
I had no intention of writing anything about this book - having just finished it I wondered what others thought of it. The two short bewilderingly negative reviews of this book surprised me, but notice that they had little to back up their view. Even the person who loaned me this book did not think it was great, and while it was certainly not as impressive as Jesus' Son (which stunned me in its brevity and impact), it held my attention throughout, even, as another reviewer wrote, you knew - to some degree - what would happen. Hell, just read the title and you know what'll happen. Perhaps the fact this book requires a bit of effort from the reader is what put off the reviewers that gave it such a low rating. But what good book doesn't? Yes, the chgaracters are in various states of mental crisis, alcohol and drug effects and after-effects, and real and imagined paranoia; so when do those ingredients make for bad noir? Johnson allowed me to feel different ways about the characters throughout the book depending on who described them, including one who appears for only a few pages (and a bit later as first a lifeless corpse and then a slightly less lifeless one) and another who never appears at all, which makes me wonder if ALL of the characters' take on that guy is completely off-base. There's dialogue worthy of the better bits of McGuane, long rambling letters that read with great panic fever, and hilarious bits about Nietzsche, who should always be good for a laugh, but is seldom used to excellent effect. More spiritual than Angels, and longer than Jesus' Son, if you love the way Johnson writes than the more the better.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars reading it again. Still holds up!
I read this book when it first came out and like it even more now. It's a solid favorite. The crazy world Johnson creates. The pathos and landscape and violence. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Eric Rickstad

5.0 out of 5 stars Already Dead is my favorite book
I've just read a number of the reviews of Already Dead here and am disappointed, though not really surprised. Some of the things that Denis Johnson does aren't for everyone. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Ghost Writer

3.0 out of 5 stars Patchy
The evocation of alternative lifestylers in Mendocino County in this intrigue, is convincing enough. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Rodney J. Moss

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful Noir
Denis Johnson gives us, in Already Dead, a fascinating look into the dark side of the human condition. Criminals. Land owners. Drifters. Cops. Three dogs. ... Read more
Published on August 11, 2006 by Asbestos Gustos

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the effort
I read this book for the first time ages ago, during the year that my book THE YEAR OF YES takes place. Read more
Published on February 6, 2006 by Maria Dahvana Headley

4.0 out of 5 stars A lotta book
I read, and re-read this book in the last year. After the first read, I was puzzled. How can one read a book so late into the night, when I should have been sleeping, so many... Read more
Published on October 16, 2005 by Nick James

3.0 out of 5 stars Reads like a first draft
Everything characteristic of Johnson is here - the poetic style, the originality, the brilliantly and efficiently sketched characters, the eccentric and engaging themes, the... Read more
Published on April 9, 2004 by Henry Platte

3.0 out of 5 stars Ok...
This is the first review I've written, but I felt I had to throw my two cents in about this book. This book moves REALLY slowly, if your someone who likes a plot to capture you... Read more
Published on July 8, 2003

3.0 out of 5 stars I wanted to love it
That's maybe the hardest thing to chew on. I really wanted to love this book, but by page 304 (where I sit), despite the endless radiating beauty of the language, I succumb to my... Read more
Published on July 2, 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything you'd want
It's a great book. A pleasure to read. Like a fever dream it makes you want more and then it ends and you're still in it for a week or so. Read more
Published on September 3, 2002 by Peter A. Weisman

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