![]() ![]() Johnson has a particular affinity for characters like that, those typically dismissed as grotesque or unknowable. When the narrator says “once something bad happens, it happens every minute of your life, it can’t be undone,” he’s speaking for himself and those in danger around him. (You can guess what “activates” means.) As the narrator shifts from helping to bust child-porn rings to fighting off his urges to recalling his own past abuse, Johnson exposes his anguish without coddling him. Gotcha, you imagine Johnson saying, each time.Ĭonsider that Cub, who appears early in “Dark Meadow.” It’s a young girl who’s being observed by the narrator, a neighbor who’s trying to suppress his pedophiliac instincts. But Johnson hides especially dark and peculiar meanings: Those innocent unexplained words soon lead to visions of emotional and physical wreckage, from North Korea to post-Katrina Louisiana to East German torture facilities. That’s a handy way for any short-story writer to hook a reader. ![]() The stories in Adam Johnson’s excellent second collection, “Fortune Smiles,” tend to open by introducing a cryptic word or phrase whose meaning isn’t fully revealed at first. ![]() “The Cub activates.” “Toucan cereal bedspread.” “Eyeball.” ![]()
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