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Today marks 3 years since the death of Denis Johnson, who wrote the best final page of a short story I’ve ever read.
He also wrote one of the greatest descriptions you’ll find of being a writer.
And this account of an emergency room’s daily cycle is a masterclass in rhythm (that second ‘children’! It’s perfect):
He considered himself an accidental correspondent at best, but he filed incredible stories from Liberia during the civil war and Afghanistan under the Taliban. Two weeks after 9/11 he wrote this extraordinary response to the attacks in the New Yorker:
This scene, from a story that includes an account of being in downtown Manhattan the day the towers fell, is the reason why whenever I see Peter O’Toole the words ‘or even of himself’ blow through my head:
His wife Cindy was his first reader. She was permitted three grades of response: genius, Shakespeare, or Elvis.
His work is jammed full of moments like this, which is genius:
And this, which is Shakespeare:
And this, which is Elvis:
And it’s worth mentioning how many writers who studied with him have highlighted his kindness and generosity. https://longreads.com/2017/06/16/the-tears-of-denis-johnson/amp/
Anyway, he was a genuine and unique artist and it makes me so sad that he died in his 60s. It sounds like hyperbole, but I think ‘Emergency’ is the best story anyone’s written in the last 30 years: https://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/stories-week-2014-2015/story-week/emergency-denis-johnson
