Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams was first published in 2002 as a short story in the Paris Review. When it was reissued as a standalone novella almost a decade later, it was shortlisted for the Pulitzer prize. While the book did not win that year, somewhat strangely neither did anything else – for the first time in 35 years, the panel refused, without explanation, to choose a winner.

I have always liked this story because it brings to life the eerie and unsettling world of the American frontier. Train Dreams is a novella where each event and detail seems significant, fused into a larger tapestry of meaning.

And yet, by the end of the book, the reader struggles to explain exactly what has happened. The effect is one of deep disturbance – somewhere between alienation, curiosity and longing. I imagine it bewitching the Pulitzer panel, stunning them into indecision.

The new movie, adapted and directed by Clint Bentley and now streaming on Netflix, is a beautiful meditation on themes of grief and loss, and a frank account of an important phase in the history of environmental crisis. Whether you’re a fan of Johnson’s writing or have never read him........

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