The Largesse of the Sea Maiden

Denis Johnson finished the five stories in his final collection a few weeks before he died of liver cancer in May 2017, and Random House published it posthumously in 2018. The title story joins Strangler Bob, The Starlight on Idaho, Triumph Over the Grave and one called Doppelganger, Poltergeist. Three had appeared before, in The New Yorker and Playboy, while two were new. The stories find Johnson turning to old ghosts and to the unexpected ways the universe's mysteries make themselves felt. On the audiobook each story has its own reader, among them Nick Offerman, Michael Shannon and Liev Schreiber. The collection was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.

Barack Obama included it in the best of 2018 list he shared on Facebook, and artist Austin Kleon called the stories beautiful and a fitting swan song.