An epic miniature of one man's life journey through the American West at the turn of the twentieth century.
DENIS JOHNSON was the author of six novels, three collections of poetry, and one book of reportage. His novel Tree of Smoke was the 2007 winner of the National Book Award. He died in 2017.
To have written something this concise, this muscular, this moving
and - yes, why not say it? - this eternal, seems little short of
miraculous. But we have come to expect miracles from Johnson. In
this age of plodding bandwagons and slavish imitation, Johnson is a
one-hundred-per-cent authentic American original and an undisputed
master of his craft
*Rupert Thomson*
A masterpiece... one of the best prose writers in our time
*Herald*
I don't think there is a sentence in the book that isn't perfectly
made
*New York Times*
A work of extraordinary power and consummate skill ... It is a
miniature novel, that delineates an epic yet ordinary life in
passages of often startling descriptive power. A masterpiece
*Observer*
Johnson might be one of America's greatest fiction writers... The
denouement is written with such credibility that it fulfils the
book's theme. Softly and beautifully, this novel asks a profound
question of human life: is the cost of human society and so-called
civilisation perhaps just too high?
*Guardian*
One of America's greatest living fiction writers... Gently
undulating and compelling... You can sit down and read it in one
sitting - and you should
*The Times*
A miraculously deft job... Beautifully done
*Daily Telegraph*
Train Dreams has the same riveting duality as its extraordinary,
ordinary hero... artfully constructed and rich in parabolic [and]
paranormal possibilities... Bewitching
*Literary Review*
We hold Denis Johnson to be one of the greatest Americans currently
writing... a work of absolute towering genius
*Dazed and Confused*
It will haunt me ever after... it resonates long and loud. The fact
that this was on the shortlist for the Pulitzer Prize makes the
jury's decision to withhold it all the more baffling. It should
have won
*Observer*
A spare stoic miniature of a particular sort of American life... a
portrait of containment, of compression and restraint, from the
most essential writer of his generation
*LA Times*
His writing is extraordinary - complex, beautiful, harrowing,
astonishing in its power, and underpinned with a hard-worn humanity
in the DNA of every sentence... exceptional on every level:
ravaged, redemptive and utterly immersive. It is further evidence,
if it were needed, of Johnson's unique and alchemical
brilliance
*Stuart Evers*
The great success of this work lies in its ability to move between
vivid, muscular prose and hallucinatory poeticism - in many ways
encapsulating all that is great about American literature. Train
Dreams retains an authenticity and clarity... Beautifully
proportioned
*Port*
The most powerful thing Johnson has ever written
*New York Times*
Picked by the New York Times as a Notable Book for 2011 and
described as "a small masterpiece", this novella tells the tragic
story of Robert West, a day labourer in the American West at the
beginning of the 20th Century.
*Times Literary Supplement*
The novella is 116 pages, but it is as rich, moving, and ambitious
as any novel I read this year - and, because it is so compact, more
powerful for it.
*The Millions*
It's a love story, a hermit's story... It's also a small
masterpiece. You look up from the thing dazed, slightly changed
*New York Times*
Extraordinary... simple yet lyrical... There is a haunting, elegiac
quality to Johnson's writing that perfectly fits with the subject
matter, giving Train Dreams the feel of a modern fable
*Big Issue*
The natural world of the American West is examined, logged and
frequently transfigured
*New Yorker*
An immaculate distillation of a certain style of American
fiction... Johnson delivers in hauntingly economical prose
*Metro*
This is a short, excellent book, with a poetic quality that makes
it oddly gripping
*Skinny*
Astonishingly gripping... Awe-inspiring and heartbreaking, exciting
and humbling, this is a recommended read
*Edinburgh Evening News*
What sets Train Dreams apart is a lucid wisdom, a sense of
perspective, a warm sustaining familiarity in the same ballpark as
Richard Ford's Canada... sharp and clean, brilliant and
surprising
*Bookmunch*
Stark and terse... all told with Johnson's maverick approach to
grammar and structure
*Guardian*
Johnson's writing is a joy
*Financial Times*
The best [novel] I read this year... It's compulsive and, finally,
unspeakably eerie
*Guardian*
This Pulitzer prize-winning author taps into a strain of Americana
we find both familiar and appealing on this side of the pond
*Belfast Telegraph*
It has the feel of a modern fable, and is unbelievably moving...
Extraordinary
*Scotsman*
You will have to keep stopping to recover from the assault of
beauty, from the spare, clean prose that punches so far above its
apparent weight, and from the tender perceptive description of a
sad little life, which is not little at all. I do not understand
why it is not everyone's favourite book of 2012...
Extraordinary
*Scotsman*
A concise yet epic slice of Americana of the unsweetened, affecting
variety... Short it may be, forgettable it is not
*Absolutely Chelsea*
Its economy of language and force of emotion give Johnson's work a
quick shot of intensity... Superb
*Independent on Sunday*
Superb
*Independent*
Epic... Full of tenderness and wonder
*Church Times*
It's beautifully written - a miniature masterpiece
*Observer*
The best book I read this year
*‘Books of the Year’ Observer*
A beautifully balanced and lyrical novella in which an ordinary
labourer [...] lives through some extraordinary times... An
outstanding work
*Times Higher Education*
Amazing
*Observer*
Set in the American West at the start of the 20th century, this is
the tale of a construction worker who, after losing his wife and
daughter to a wildfire, lives as a recluse in the woods... It's a
feat
*Sunday Times*
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
