''Resuscitation of a Hanged Man'' is a novel by

Denis Johnson Denis Hale Johnson (July 1, 1949 – May 24, 2017) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. He is perhaps best known for his debut short story collection, '' Jesus' Son'' (1992). His most successful novel, ''Tree of Smoke'' (2007) ...

published in 1991 by

Farrar, Straus and Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer ...

. The story explores the struggles of a

private investigator A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI and informally called a private eye), a private detective, or inquiry agent is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigators of ...

, Leonard English, to become a person of religious faith, and his isolated descent into madness.

Plot

Critical assessment

Critic

Mona Simpson Mona Simpson (née Jandali; June 14, 1957) is an American novelist. She has written six novels and studied English at the University of California, Berkeley and Languages and Literature at Columbia University. She won a Whiting Award for her fi ...

, testifying to Johnson's "ability to write a gorgeous sentence", registers this critique of ''Resuscitation of a Hanged Man'':

Theme

Critic David L. Ulin argues that the thematic center of ''The Resuscitation of a Hanged Man''—"the key to the entire novel"—resides in the protagonist Leonard English's inability to distinguish his "brief, intense flashes of the starkest lucency" from his bouts of

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

. The protagonist laments that "our delusions are just as likely to be real as our most careful scientific observations." Johnson renders striking descriptions of the real world from which English crafts his delusions which serve to illustrate his character's descent into madness. Ulin offers this caveat: Literary critic Mona Simpson notes that "Roman Catholicism is a persistent theme in Mr. Johnson's work...evincing a deep attraction to the lavish emblems and ritual of the Mass." Johnson "flirts" with the

detective genre Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as specul ...

in this novel—Simpson compares English with the investigator Jake Gittes in ''

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

'' (1974)—however, the thematic element in ''The Resuscitation of a Hanged Man'' is "God", according to critic Aaron Thier: "God the metaphor, God the stylistic trope, God the real and eternal being..." Simpson comments on Johnson's development of his subsidiary characters in a novel in which the protagonist searches for his "

doppelgänger A doppelgänger (), a compound noun formed by combining the two nouns (double) and (walker or goer) (), doppelgaenger or doppelganger is a biologically unrelated look-alike, or a double, of a living person. In fiction and mythology, a doppelg ...

Footnotes

Sources

* * * * * * * {{Authority control 1991 American novels American detective novels Farrar, Straus and Giroux books Fictional amateur detectives Novels by Denis Johnson Novels set in Boston Novels set in Massachusetts Novels set in New Hampshire Novels set on Cape Cod and the Islands Postmodern novels Catholicism in fiction