Capturing 'the youthful soul'

 Maybe it was yesterday’s note on a 15-year-old farmer in England that made me think of Denis Johnson, who liked stories that “speak to the experience of the youthful soul.”

Maybe it was because I grew up in the Navy, but it seems to me that most young men tell stories about themselves. The stories get larger, as if bigger, better stories could create a bigger, better man. Eventually, the subject of the autobiographical stories is no longer a human being but a fictional character. As Johnson put it:

 

It started out being almost pure reminiscence and then it became lying, and if you put it between covers a lie becomes a work of fiction.

 

Johnson’s early stories are between the covers of Jesus’ Son.

• Source: Janet Steen, “Lying Down in the Dirt: An Interview with Denis Johnson”; Longreads, Feb. 28, 2018. It’s here:

https://longreads.com/2018/02/28/lying-down-in-the-dirt-an-interview-with-denis-johnson/