Train Dreams

Robert Grainier is a day labourer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century - an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainier struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime. Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West - its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge-builders - Train Dreams captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life.

Denis Johnson is the author of The Name of the World, Already Dead, Jesus' Son, Resuscitation of a Hanged Man, Fiskadoro, The Stars at Noon, and Angels. His poetry has been collected in the volume The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly. He is the recipient of a Lannan Fellowship and a Whiting Writer's Award, among many other honors for his work. His novel Tree Smoke won the National Book Award in 2007, and Train Dreams (Granta 2012) was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in northern Idaho.