story: “Triumph of the Grave”
author: Denis Johnson
year: 2018
where: Holiday Chalet, Denver
note: This is my favorite of the Johnson stories I have read so far. The end really lights up. I think part of the reason is the other stories I have read have been very male heavy without any central female characters or spirit.
a line: “Malcolm had gone to generous lengths in order to get Liz here for this last meeting and parting with Link, just as he not only enabled but encouraged their telephone conversations, pressing himself into these services out of some poetic inkling, I’m willing to assume, some unbearable intuition of the rightness and even the beauty of the facts.”
theme(s): Death, friendship, illness
samantha Neugebauer 