I don't know too much about Denis Johnson, but in my mind, at least, he's part of that cohort of novelists focused on the American West. I'm thinking, especially, about Wallace Stegner and Cormac McCarthy. If that's the case (and if Johnson is indeed part of that cohort), then Train Dreams fits the mold: this short novel -- set at the turn of the twentieth century -- captures a number of the themes made famous by the rugged Western experience. Train Dreams is about the brutality of the land, the promise of its financial fortune, and the loneliness of people who attempted to conquer it. But more than that: Johnson seems to have something to say about the temporary nature of life on the frontier. When his main character, Robert Grainier, passes away, it's as if he hasn't lived at all. He's owned few things, loved very little, and has never truly understood his past. He's the extension of a landscape indifferent to humanity. In that way, Train Dreams is a very sad novella. But then again, seen another way, it's a novel about what a person actually needs, and about how, over time, a sense of identity emerges from the limitations imposed by an unyielding environment.
Our neighborhood book club read Train Dreams. It struck me as having been written to spec. A bit after we read it, I noticed an issue of some literary publication given over to Train Dreams, with the statement that the editor had offered Johnson so many pages for whatever he cared to write.
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