It’s almost Christmas but despite the title of the book this column is recommending today, don’t expect your usual year-end cheer from this one. These loosely connected stories shadow the same troubled protagonist – and he’s one who belongs on the fringes of society, the one we love to overlook – a drifter, an addict, an eternal outsider.

Jesus’ Son, a short fiction anthology by Denis Johnson, was published in 1992 and takes its title from the song “Heroin” by the celebrated band Velvet Underground. The eleven stories in this collection........

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