Train Dreams
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- 105,00 kr
Publisher Description
A New York Times Notable Book for 2011
One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year
One of NPR's 10 Best Novels of 2011
From the National Book Award-winning author Denis Johnson (Tree of Smoke) comes Train Dreams, an epic in miniature, and one of Johnson's most evocative works of fiction.
Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West—its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge builders—this extraordinary novella poignantly captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life.
It tells the story of Robert Grainer, a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century—an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Train Dreams packs a lot of ideas about a lost America into a slim novella bursting with quirky characters and unforgettable imagery. At the centre is Robert Grainier, a manual labourer in the pre-WWII American Northwest. We follow him from state to state and job to job (railroad work, logging, and other manual labour) and share in his curious, alternately funny and moving encounters along the way. We watch him shift from solitary soul to family man and risk it all in his hardscrabble, itinerant work. Denis Johnson’s unpretentiously poetic prose provides rich period details and digs into both mythology and history as the story moves organically between the everyday and the otherworldly. There’s a quiet kind of magic to it all as we experience the push and pull between the industrial and natural worlds; it’s easy to see why it was adapted to film. Will Patton, who also provides the narrative voice-over in the movie, embodies the weathered Americana vibe central to the story. Train Dreams is a lot of things, but most of all, it’s uniquely American.
