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Angels
Angels
Sep 10, 2025 9:16 PM

Author:Denis Johnson

Angels

‘Adazzling and savage first novel’ New York Times

Angels tells the story of two born losers. Jamie has ditched her husband and is running away with her two baby girls. Bill is dreaming of making it big in a life of crime. They meet on a Greyhound bus and decide to team up.

So begins a stunning, tragic odyssey through the dark underbelly of America – the bars, bus stations, mental wards and prisons that play host to Jamie and Bill as they find themselves trapped in a downward spiral though rape, alcohol, drugs and crime, to madness and death.

From the author of Tree of Smoke, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction

Reviews

Johnson succeeds so well as to make one eager for more

—— John Sutherland , London Review of Books

A beautifully tragic chronicle

—— New York Magazine

Denis Johnson is one of our most inventive, unpredictable novelists

—— New York Times Book Review

Johnson knows his people inside out, their lost, lonely, never-had-a-chance lives. He knows how they talk and think, and he makes us know them too

—— Publishers Weekly

One of the strongest examples of fiction noir since Robert Stone's first work appeared-with an absence of sentimentality and an overall shape that's perfectly judged, this is one of the most impressive first novels of recent seasons - full of a fiery recoiling kick, the dreadful power of inhuman ugliness and misfortune beyond redemption

—— Kirkus Reviews

A must-read novel

—— Prima

Beguiling... An absorbing, entertaining read: one that will see you nicely through a few long dark evenings

—— A Life in Books

An emotionally powerful, highly charged story... a fascinating story with an intriguing premise

—— CultureFly

Like eavesdropping on a conversation in a bar...This is a really cleverly structured and well-crafted novel

—— We Love This Book

An intriguing drama and romance

—— Daily Record

This is a harrowing, but gripping love story

—— Good Book Guide

Wonderfully enticing.

—— Lucian Robinson , Literary Review

Individual scenes are often gripping, shocking or moving.

—— John Harding , Daily Mail

The bloody horrors of conflict are captured with visceral aplomb in this fine, minimalist novel.

—— i

Some of the most vividly evoked battle scenes I've read – he doesn't shy away from taking risks … chilling and touching all at the same time.

—— John Preston , Evening Standard

Foulds has the literary intelligence to turn the commonplace on its head.

—— Alberto Manguel , Guardian

A high-class thriller … Foulds has a literary novelist's feel for [Sicily's] harsh beauty.

—— Mail on Sunday

Foulds’ prose is superb… It reads like Catch-22 written by Evelyn Waugh.

—— Good Book Guide

It’s an ambitious book and the writer relates his story with poetic precision

—— i (The paper for today)

Told in a language that is both lyrical and stark The Tusk that Did the Damage should win Tania James praise and laurels from those readers who long for a more penetrating look at environmental issues and the moral questions which accompany them’.

—— Joe Phelan , Bookmunch
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