Denis Johnson (born 1949 in Munich, West Germany) is an American writer who has written numerous novels, short stories and poems.

This novel, which suggests a brilliant mixture of William Blake and James M. Cain, established Denis Johnson as a major talent in American fiction, a promise confirmed in his later books Fiskadoro and The Stars at Noon. Jamie Mays and Bill Houston meet on a Greyhound bus. She is fleeing an unfaithful husband and lugging two travel-stained children. He is on the rebound from stints in jail and the navy and looking for "high old times." Together, they make an aimless tour of bus stations and cheap hotels from Pittsburgh to Phoenix, their momentum fueled by booze, rage, and corrosive need, their journey a trajectory that leads inexorably to a moment of shattering violence.

"A small masterpiece... prose of amazing power and stylishness."

-- Philip Roth