Revolving Snub

National Book Award-winning writer Denis Johnson (Tree of Smoke) occupies an anomalous place in the melee that passes for the American literary culture. Viewed as a prickly sort and outsider (he lives in Northern Idaho and passed on attendance to the N.B.A. awards ceremony), Johnson's Jesus' Son (both the book and the film) won him a reverential cult audience and the questionable designation as a writer's writer. Personally, I am fond (if that verb can be applied to Johnson's discomfiting fictions) of Resuscitation of a Hanged Man and at this very moment am experiencing deep guilt for never getting around to reading his post-apocalyptic novel Fiskadoro. Johnson also seems ever to be known and attached to a scathing and unrelentingly vindictive critique by the Atlantic's resident petit inquisitor.

Nobody Move (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) is a droll, amusing, noiresque entertainment (first serialized in that great American literary institution, Playboy) that risks not being taken seriously, as easy to digest--such is the price of making things appear effortless. In it, assorted bottom feeders, oddballs, and lifelong felons vie for $2.3 million or their next drink and/or cigarette--whichever comes up first. It is a quintessentially American story, with Cadillac-driving Mafioso hitmen, high-spirited, alcoholic, Native American divorcees, and lots of cigarette smoking along with a fair amount of gunplay. No doubt there were lots of reviews that pegged this novel as a tribute to the American crime novel. Read 'em if you care.

Reportedly, one explanation for Johnson's demurral of the 2007 National Books Awards ceremony was a reportorial assignment in Kurdistan. Which I assure you, you'll want to read, because it's loaded with gems like this (and more):

New York Times