Jesus' Son

Jesus’ Son (1992) is a collection of short fiction by American writer Denis Johnson, published by Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux. It explores themes of The Slipperiness of Time, Substance Use Disorder, and Violence as Inevitability. In the form of a short story cycle, each of the 11 stories of Jesus’ Son is narrated by the same protagonist, who has a substance use disorder and is referred to in the narrative as “Fuckhead”. The book takes its title from the Velvet Underground song “Heroin” and concerns the lives of several people with substance use disorders in the rural Midwest as they track down substances and commit crimes. Jesus’ Son has a disjointed and nonlinear narrative style, which mimics the thought process of the mind of a person with substance use disorder.

This guide references the Kindle version.

Content Warning: Jesus’ Son includes depictions of sexual assault, murder, substance use disorder, racist language, stalking, self-harm, abortion, and death by suicide. In addition, the main character’s name is “Fuckhead,” but from this point forward, this guide uses an obscured version of the name (“F**khead”) to avoid the excessive repetition of profanity.

Plot Summaries

Jesus’ Son consists of 11 interconnected stories, all narrated by a character known only as F**khead. While little is known about F**khead’s life, it can be assumed he is an American, born sometime in the 1940s, as most of the book takes place in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most of the stories are nonlinear, so it is unclear which story occurred first. Instead, the stories are linked through related themes and images.

In the first story of the collection, “Car Crash While Hitchhiking,” F**khead claims to have extra-sensory perception, understanding that when he enters a certain car, that car will have an accident. However, he decides he doesn’t care, and enters the car anyway. After the inevitable crash, F**khead saves a baby and is brought to the hospital. The story ends several years later, with F**khead looking back as he detoxes and hallucinates.

“Two Men” begins with F**khead and a couple of friends attending a dance, where F**khead dances with and kisses a married woman. Afraid of her husband, the friends leave the bar to discover a man who claims to be hard of hearing and non-verbal has broken into their car. F**khead and his friends take the man to a few locations, then abandon him as he chases them down. F**khead recognizes a man who’d sold him bad cocaine earlier, and the story ends with F**khead breaking into the man’s house and threatening his wife with a gun.

“Out on Bail” takes place at one of the narrator’s favorite bars, called The Vine. F**khead encounters a man, Jack Hotel, who is facing years in prison and is at the bar during a recess of his trial. F**khead recounts the stories of some of the other people at the bar, most of which involve serious substance use disorders. F**khead feels unstuck from linear time and realizes that he’d actually encountered Jack Hotel after he’d been acquitted. They go off to steal some money, and the narrator relates that he feels grateful for his life after Jack Hotel dies by overdose.

In “Dundun,” F**khead tries to purchase opium from a friend named Dundun, who lives on a farm. When he arrives, Dundun admits that he’d accidentally shot another friend named McInnes. F**khead agrees to drive McInnes to the hospital, but McInnes dies on the way, which the narrator is happy about, since he never liked McInnes.

“Work” starts at a hotel, where F**khead and his girlfriend take heroin and fight with each other. Following a violent argument, F**khead goes to a bar, where he encounters a man named Wayne. Wayne takes him to strip the copper wiring from a house he used to own, and as they do so, they both witness a nude woman strapped to a kite flying above a river. Afterward, Wayne heads to his wife’s home, where they have an unknown conversation. F**khead and Wayne then head back to the bar to spend their money, feeling proud of themselves for their honest day of work. The story ends with a description of their favorite bartender, who F**khead thinks is similar to his mother.

In “Emergency,” F**khead discusses his job as an orderly at a hospital, working with his friend, Georgie. One day on the job, Georgie takes pills and becomes noticeably intoxicated. F**khead and Georgie prep a man who has been stabbed in the eye, and Georgie removes the knife, contrary to the doctor’s instructions. Later, F**khead and Georgie go for a drive and get further intoxicated. After hitting a pregnant bunny, Georgie takes the babies with him, but they’re killed after F**khead accidentally sits on them. The friends pick up a hitchhiker, and when he asks what they do, Georgie responds, “I save lives” (72).

“Dirty Wedding” begins with the narrator relating how much he likes to ride the elevated trains and look into the windows of the apartments he passes. One day, he takes his girlfriend Michelle to the abortion clinic but gets kicked out. Afterward, he randomly follows a man around and tries to purchase drugs from a teenager. The story ends with the narrator looking back on his relationship with Michelle and her eventual death.

In “The Other Man,” F**khead meets a man on a ferry who lies about being a foreigner before admitting that he’s from Cleveland. F**khead goes to a different bar and meets a woman who wants to have sex with him. However, she was married only four days previously, and F**khead feels conflicted.

Note: The protagonist’s name, “Fuckhead,” is obscured in the guide but not in the source text.