Jesus' Son

On any given day, this is my favorite book with one of my favorite bars, The Vine, a dive that Johnson describes as “like a railroad club car that had somehow run itself off the tracks into a swamp of time where it awaited the blows of the wrecking ball.” Is it a nice place? No. Would you take a date here? Not if you wanted them to respect you. Could you find yourself in mortal danger? Absolutely. But amongst the addicts and runaways, the small-time crooks and ne’er do wells, you’ll find moments of beauty that transcend the pain… show more.

For uptight readers like me who can barely handle a stiff drink, the Druggy Road Trip genre can feel dumb and snobbish. But Johnson’s close, lucid prose is, well, addictive. Strung out in small-town ’70s America, a young guy called F**khead navigates unreality in 11 intertwined stories. The collection is just over 100 pages, and by the end, F**khead finds himself across the country and in rehab. But sobriety isn’t even the point. Passages like this are: “Georgie and I had a terrific time driving around. For a while the day was clear and peaceful. It was one of the… show more.

On the first date with my now-husband, he asked that typical question: What’s your favorite book? And despite it being a typical question I didn’t have an immediate answer. I love to read about psychology, neurology, linguistics, and cosmology, but those aren’t really the types of books that make you call out a favorite. I remember later staring at my bookcase and asking myself which one I could say was my favorite. On the next date I handed him my copy of Jesus’ Son. It’s an addictive page-turner and a quick read, so a few days later he'd finished… show more.