Jesus on the Mainline: Lou Reed and Denis Johnson's Jesus' Sons
In Jesus' Son, perhaps Johnson's most representative work, Johnson portrays the story of his narrator's search for religious transcendence through a creative engagement with Lou Reed's great song about drug addiction and spiritual yearning, "Heroin." The title of the bo...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2004]
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| In: |
Journal of religion and popular culture
Year: 2004, Volume: 7, Issue: 1 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | In Jesus' Son, perhaps Johnson's most representative work, Johnson portrays the story of his narrator's search for religious transcendence through a creative engagement with Lou Reed's great song about drug addiction and spiritual yearning, "Heroin." The title of the book is in fact a coded reference to Reed's "Heroin" (mentioned in the epigraph) and to the narrator's search to become worthy of Jesus Christ's legacy. Lou Reed, though, is the novel's authorizing voice, or spirit of the novel. Johnson writes a kind of confessional novel—the story of his birth of an artist that also refers to his status as a born-again Christian. In using Reed's "Heroin" to structure his fictional autobiography, Johnson acknowledges that Lou Reed helped give him the vision to render a horrid world true and beautiful, something worth saving. |
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| ISSN: | 1703-289X |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religion and popular culture
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3138/jrpc.7.1.003 |