Train Dreams

A rather good little book, and beautiful too. I finished it today, having spun it out for a bit because I was enjoying it. Beck read it too, over the weekend, it’s only a short one. Of course, pretty much everything Denis Johnson writes is touched by genius. This one’s about a railroad construction worker, logger and latter day hermit in the shifting first half of the American Twentieth Century rather than disconnected, shiftless drunks and junkies in the latter half, but it still has the effect of elevating the everyday and building myths from the passing of time. The design is great too – I’m pretty sure that the genius of the pages above lies simply in shifting the word ‘train’ from the title page onto the opposite leaf, but the typeface is perfect as well (I’m not sure which font it is but I imagine those scythe-blade like tails on the R’s would make it fairly easy to track down were one of a mind to…)