Supplement to Cronenberg

Wed, Mar 15, 2006

Denis Johnson’s story “There Comes after Here,” published in the April 1972 Atlantic (which also features a disapproving review of Straw Dogs by David Denby, cf. his current NY’er review of V for Vendetta), ends with a woman, beset by the quasi-naturalistic forces stage-managed in A History of Violence having a religious revelation on her bus to Pennsylvania. I can’t remember if this incident was directly incorporated into Angels or is merely similar; but it is clearly a moment of lunatic transcendence. (Imagine if Cronenberg had directed the adaptation of Jesus’ Son. Already Dead would also be worth contemplating.)