Review: Train Dreams

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The re-read made me appreciate this book all that much more. 

A man who basically came from nowhere with no real family, leaves behind no one, so his entire life is destined to be forgotten. But he lived a full life, becoming a husband and father, and working, traveling, etc. And, as one of the final paragraphs states:

"Grainier himself lived more than eighty years, well into the 1960s. In his time he’d traveled west to within a few dozen miles of the Pacific, though he’d never seen the ocean itself, and as far east as the town of Libby, forty miles inside Montana. He’d had one lover—his wife, Gladys—owned one acre of property, two horses, and a wagon. He’d never been drunk. He’d never purchased a firearm or spoken into a telephone. He’d ridden on trains regularly, many times in automobiles, and once on an aircraft. During the last decade of his life he watched television whenever he was in town. He had no idea who his parents might have been, and he left no heirs behind him."

Changed the rating from 4 to 5. 

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