Angels

Angels is an unsettling and often unpleasant novel, about a white working-class woman on the run from her abusive husband. But Denis Johnson's extraordinary prose holds your attention, with lines like this one:

Holding his gun out toward the guard and firing was something like spraying paint–trying to get every spot covered. He wanted to make sure there was no life showing through.

And this on a death row prisoner about to be executed:

He was in the middle of taking the last breath of his life before he realized he was taking it. But it was all right. Boom! Unbelievable! And another coming? How many of these things do you mean to give away? He got right in the dark between heartbeats, and rested there. And then he saw that another wasn’t going to come. That’s it. That’s the last. He looked at the dark.

Recommended.