Already dead : a California gothic

'In sustained breathtaking language of genuine poetic authority it depicts the collapse of the last American frontier.

The characters inhabiting that frontier are strange, ghostly, complex figures -- all believable, all recognizable -- and it is Denis Johnson's accomplishment here to have penetrated, understood and represented the extraordinary weirdness and richness of their minds.

A grim tale of revenge snakes through it all, lending tension and momentum to this wildly beautiful story of a terminal landscape and its population of lost and drifting souls' Patrick McGrath 'Already Dead is California noir transcended by inspiration.

It's harrowing and hilarious, tough without trying to be, purely and beautifully written.

There isn't an American voice I love listening to more than Denis Johnson's' Michael Herr 'Already Dead is a novel like no other, a wild ride through an imagination endlessly surprising and darkly profound in its apprehensions of our condition. From his fearsome inventions and singular voice, Johnson fashions religious art of the order of Brighton Rock and the paintings of Bosch and Breughel, yet shot through with revelations that startle us into laughter -- even, though we hardly believe it's happening, into something like hope.

Already Dead is a novel to welcome and celebrate' Tobias Wolff 'Once Denis Johnson gets his hooks into you -- it takes about two sentences -- it's pretty much impossible to stop reading' New York Times Book Review