Seek: Reports From the Edges of America & Beyond

Part political disquisition, part travel journal, part self-exploration, Seek is a collection of essays and articles in which Denis Johnson basically takes on the world. It's not an easygoing, obliging place, as he sees it, but one in which horror and humor and beauty are often indistinguishable from each other and elicit a literary vision of subtlety and power. Whether traveling through war-ravaged Liberia, mingling with crowds at a Christian biker rally, or mining his own inner resources as he prospects for gold in Alaska, Johnson conveys to us the intensity of ordinary life and extraordinary circumstances, in writing that is immediate, natural, and often dismayed.