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Train Dreams
Cover of Train Dreams
Train Dreams

Robert Grainier is a day labourer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century - an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainier 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.

Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West - its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge-builders - Train Dreams captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life.

Robert Grainier is a day labourer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century - an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainier 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.

Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West - its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge-builders - Train Dreams captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life.

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Awards-
About the Author-
  • Denis Johnson is the author of The Name of the World, Already Dead, Jesus' Son, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man, Fiskadoro, The Stars at Noon, and Angels. His poetry has been collected in the volume The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly. He is the recipient of a Lannan Fellowship and a Whiting Writer's Award, among many other honors for his work. His novel Tree Smoke won the National Book Award in 2007, and Train Dreams (Granta 2012) was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in northern Idaho.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    Starred review from May 9, 2011
    Readers eager for a fat follow-up to Tree of Smoke could be forgiven a modicum of skepticism at this tidy volume—a reissue of a 2003 O. Henry Prize–winning novella that originally appeared in the Paris Review—but it would be a shame to pass up a chance to encounter the synthesis of Johnson's epic sensibilities rendered in miniature in the clipped tone of Jesus' Son. The story is a snapshot of early 20th-century America as railroad laborer Robert Granier toils along the rails that will connect the states and transform his itinerant way of life. Drinking in tent towns and spending summers in the wilds of Idaho, Granier misses the fire back home that leaves no trace of his wife and child. The years bring diminishing opportunities, strange encounters, and stranger dreams, but it's not until after participating in the miracle of flight—and a life-changing encounter with a mythical monster—that Granier realizes what he's been looking for. An ode to the vanished West that captures the splendor of the Rockies as much as the small human mysteries that pass through them, this svelte stand-alone has the virtue of being a gem in itself, and, for the uninitiated, a perfect introduction to Johnson.

  • Publisher's Weekly

    November 28, 2011
    Will Patton—who narrated Johnson’s Tree of Smoke—helms this audio version of the author’s far more compact novella about the life of day laborer Robert Granier, who—having lost his family—works his way across the country laying rail lines that will eventually connect the country. Patton narrates in a husky whisper, sounding like a longtime denizen of Johnson’s semimythical American West. It is hard to place Patton’s accent precisely, and this vagueness infuses his reading with an earthy, classic American sound that matches the author’s prose. Highly stylized, Patton’s narration might be too much to handle in a longer audiobook. But in this brisk performance, he never overstays his welcome, and the result is well worth a listen. A Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover.

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Train Dreams
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Denis Johnson
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