Already Dead (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Denis Johnson
- First Published: 1997
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: 1990-1991
- Setting: Northern California
- Principal Characters: Nelson Fairchild, Jr., Nelson Fairchild, Sr., Winona Fairchild, Melissa, Carl Van Ness, Harry Lally, Tony Thompson, John Navarro
- Genres: Long fiction, Regional fiction, Philosophical realism
- Subjects: North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Wives, Murder or homicide, Religion, Antiheroes, California, West, U.S., Death or dying, Inheritance or succession, Assassins, hit men, or contract killers, Drinking or drunkenness, Afterlife, Fog, Ocean
- Locales: California
Denis Johnson’s previous novel, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man (1990), was set on the “sandy outskirts of the last town in America,” as far east as one can go without walking and falling off into water. That “last town” was Provincetown, Massachusetts, and the novel itself—as the title suggests—took readers inside the world of a man who had come back from the dead, who had, in a sense, been resurrected after having made an attempt to put an end to his own life. In his follow-up book, the collection of stories entitled Jesus’ Son (1993), Johnson turned his...
[The entire page is 1969 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
See Also
