Jesus' Son has enjoyed fulsome praise since its publication in 1992, and is widely recognized as "beloved", "iconic", and the author "deified."[11][12][13] According to literary critic Kevin Zambrano "It's no wonder, twenty-five years [after its publication], Jesus' Son has become a staple of writing workshops across America—its voice is that of a totally free mind, able to say anything." He adds that Jesus' Son is "the book with which Johnson is most often identified."[14][15] The anonymous narrator of these stories, delivered from a first-person confessional point-of-view, has endeared Johnson to his readership. Critic J. Robert Lennon writes:
The work we all loved best was Jesus' Son. Unassuming in presentation and readable in one sitting, the book was narrated in a gently self-deprecating, conversational style by a protagonist who, though unnamed, sheepishly lets it be known that people call him "Fuckhead."[16]
Author Jim Lewis calls Jesus' Son "a small collection of eccentric and addictive short stories…But unlike most books about the dispossessed, they're original and what's more, deliriously beautiful — ravishing, painful; as desolate as Dostoyevsky, as passionate and terrifying as Edgar Allan Poe.[17]
Acknowledging Johnson's "serious artistic accomplishments", critic Sandy English notes the absence of historical social antecedents in Jesus' Son;
Overall, the characters are not engaging, and the life depicted here is not that intriguing. The writing effectively reflects the addled thoughts of addled people existing in a netherworld. Johnson recognizably and articulately identifies that netherworld. But after a number of decades and much more poisoning of youth by opioids and other substances—one wants fiction to have a broader sweep about and understanding of the issues.[18][19]
