Resuscitation of a Hanged Man Pdf Summary
Leonard English, a sad and intense young man recovering from a suicide attempt, comes to Provincetown on Cape Cod to take a job as a disc jockey-cum-private detective. Provincetown is a last outpost of civilization, an end of the earth, a resort town emptied by autumn, where many of those who wear skirts are not women and many of the women do not love men. On his first day there, English encounters a beautiful young woman at Mass and falls desperately in love with her, but Leanna turns out to be gay; and English’s first assignment as a detective, a search for the elusive artist Gerald Twinbrook, is equally frustrating. As autumn turns to winter and Leonard’s anguish mounts, his desperate quests – for Twinbrook, for love, for redemption – take on an increasingly apocalyptic coloring.
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Resuscitation of a Hanged Man Review
4.0 out of 5 stars Johnson being Johnson
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2013
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Having learned a little about his bio, ‘Hanged Man fits well within Johnson’s wheel-house. No real departures here, but that’s okay. It works and the novel feels appropriately sized. As a person who finds brevity important, I appreciated that. Beautiful and deranged. Johnson doing his thing.
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent. I loved it!|
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2018
I’ve read two other Denis Johnson books – JESUS’ SON and TREE OF SMOKE, both excellent. RESUSCITATION OF A HANGED MAN, probably one of his lesser known works, is a decidedly different kinda animal. It gives us the story of thirty-ish Lennie English, who arrives in Provincetown on Cape Cod in the winter of 1980, driving up from Kansas, where he recently attempted to hang himself, obviously unsuccessfully (or maybe not). Yeah, it’s THAT strange. A mix of lapsed Catholicism, detective story, sexual intrigue and kinkiness, right wing paramilitary groups, etc. – all that stuff is in here. As English tries to start his life anew, he finds work as a Radio DJ and tech, AND as assistant to a retired cop/private investigator (who also owns the radio station). And he falls in love with Leanna, a gay – or bisexual – woman, who actually gives him a tumble.
Lennie finds himself descending by stages deeper and deeper into apparent insanity. After a conversation with a radio guest who does ‘auras,’ for example, Lennie learns he has a ‘golden’ aura, and considers –
“… it was ridiculous that anyone would go around imagining a golden light shining out of his chest. But he knew he’d probably start doing it.”
Because of Lennie’s tortured relationship with his Catholic faith, one can’t help but think of the usual Catholic images of Jesus and His glowing Sacred Heart.
And later, as his uneasiness and madness grow, Lennie tries to write a note to Leanna, saying –
“Many of the feelings I’ve been having lately, breaking down and crying when alone, the sense of a cloud between me and God, the intuition that now, behind the cloud, is the time of faith …”
The story culminates in the spring and early summer, as Lennie tries to track down a missing person, traveling up into New Hampshire and back, continuing to unravel mentally and emotionally all the way. He arrives back in Provincetown just as the summer season is beginning, filling the town with hordes of colorful gays and transvestites. Donning some of Leanna’s clothes, he joins the parade, but with a very dark purpose, as the story rushes toward its page-turning climax and denouement.
I am still puzzling over the final pages, and probably will for some time, but I was caught up by this book, and am so sad that Denis Johnson is no longer with us. But I know there is a new posthumous story collection due out this Spring, and I will definitely be reading it. This book? Excellent. I loved it!
About Denis Johnson Author Of Resuscitation of a Hanged Man pdf Book
Poet, playwright and author Denis Johnson Author Of Resuscitation of a Hanged Man pdf Book was born in Munich, West Germany, in 1949 and was raised in Tokyo, Manila and Washington. He earned a masters’ degree from the University of Iowa and received many awards for his work, including a Lannan Fellowship in Fiction (1993), a Whiting Writer’s Award (1986), the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction from the Paris Review for Train Dreams, and most recently, the National Book Award for Fiction (2007).
Resuscitation of a Hanged Man pdf, Paperback, Hardcover Book Information
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 0413772322
- ISBN-13 : 978-0413772329
- Item Weight : 3.52 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.12 x 0.67 x 7.83 inches
- Customer Reviews: 4.3 out of 5 stars 43 ratings
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