Denis Johnson

Nothing really "somehow" escapes my attention. If I don't a thing it is my own fault and not that of unknown forces. In the spirit of honesty I confess that Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson's forthcoming book about Vietnam, escaped my attention despite the fact that press-release emails about it have been going around the Internet for a couple weeks now and, more incredibly, that an advance copy is sitting in my roommate's bedroom (Thanks, journalism!).

At any rate, I'm interested in several elements of this advance copy that do not include Johnson's narrative itself. For one, FSG publisher Jonathan Galassi included, where the "cover flap" is supposed to be (I believe - I didn't go to publishing school), a letter to his "Friends," the journalists who are, as we speak, reading this book. In this letter he expresses that the memory of this book has somehow not escaped his attention since he finished reading it, it's the best book of the century, and other such laudatory comments that I am inclined to believe because I read Jesus' Son.

My roommate doesn't have any other advance copies laying around, so I can't really compare, but I wonder about the function of this friendly note. Does it appear inside the cover of all books produced by all publishers, or is it a flag to journalists that they'd better read this one because it is actually fairly good? My gut instinct is that this cover-flap thing is an oft-used marketing strategy (I used to send an email version of cover-flap things to bloggers when I worked for a magazine), but there's a heartening chance that Jonathan Galassi really cares more about Denis Johnson than other writers that hit his presses. If so, the two of us have something in common.

The second element is basic - the dedication that reads "Again for H. P. and those who." There is no period at the end and presumably the dedicated already know what they did. Johnson is normally pretty confessional in his writing and candid in his interviews so I'm curious why he would trail off in his dedication. Maybe he needs a trimmed sentence to preserve his image as a druggy bumbler - by not saying what these folks have done he leaves in the reader's imagination some heroic acts heretofore undescribed in his fiction. But probably he's just respecting people's privacy.

At any rate, I'm not going to read DJ's book just yet, for ethical (Journalism) as well as book-club (The Corrections :'() reasons. But more on book flaps and dedications as the situation emerges.