Denis Johnson’s last collection of short stories, published posthumously, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is the crown for the dead king of writing about the addicted, the downtrodden, and those people who haunt the world while yet alive. Each story reminds me of the line Jim Morrison sang in “Roadhouse Blues.” “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near.” Johnson’s brilliance is the uncertainty we feel our way through as we read his stories and the “unexpected, but satisfying endings” Aristotle wrote about. In each story, Johnson leads us down a clear narrative path then he turns and the story transforms into something else in its weight and resonance as if you’ve rounded a corner and bumped into an ex-lover, reminding you of a better self you might have become.
