Word: johnson
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Denis Johnson, the author of four previous novels and three volumes of poetry, has earned an impressive string of literary awards and fellowships, not to mention a circle of devoted readers. But the big commercial blockbuster that all writers, no matter how pure and literary, dream about has so far eluded him. Already Dead (HarperCollins; 435 pages; $25) looks very much like Johnson's bid to hit the charts, with a bullet. Subtitled A California Gothic, a phrase that some may find redundant, this new novel offers just about everything that thriller buyers look for: drugs, booze, sex, murderous violence...
...Sure," Van Ness answers when asked. That response, of course, is only the beginning of a story that quickly spins out of Nelson's and, eventually, everyone else's control, except for the author's, who narrates this trajectory of calamities with noteworthy energy and skill. And Johnson is obviously aiming for something more here than standard-issue pulp-fiction chills. In their reflective moments his whacked-out villains have a tendency to quote Nietzsche, as if to explain themselves to themselves and the reader. But Johnson does not make clear where, among so many burned-out characters, the reader...
DIED. ROBERT WEAVER, 89, the first African American appointed to the Cabinet; in New York City. In 1966 President Lyndon Johnson named him to fill the new post of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development at a time of intense inner-city turmoil...
...will remember Walter Cronkite's walk-on at the end of a Mary Tyler Moore Show episode more than two decades ago. With Contact, however, the journalistic community's sensitivity to the blurring of the lines between news and entertainment has caused some sober second thoughts. CNN president Tom Johnson said last week that in the future such appearances will probably be banned, bringing the cable network in line with the longtime policies...
AUSTIN: Tapes of Lyndon Johnson made in the summer of 1964 reveal a man who despite his successes, never really felt like he belonged out front. "The South is against me and the North is against me and the Negroes are against me and the press doesn't really have any affection for me," LBJ told associates on the tapes, newly released by Johnson's presidential library in Austin. "I don't think a white Southerner is the man to unite this nation in this hour." When it was pointed out that if he didn't run, Republican Barry Goldwater...