He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 novel, The Orphan Master's Son, and the National Book Award for his 2015 story collection Fortune Smiles.

Johnson earned a BA in Journalism from Arizona State University in 1992, though he studied principally with the fiction writer Ron Carlson.

He earned an MFA from the writing program at McNeese State University in 1996, where he studied with Robert Olen Butler and John Wood.

Michiko Kakutani described the central theme running through his tales as "a melancholy melody of longing and loss: a Salingeresque sense of adolescent alienation and confusion, combined with an acute awareness of the randomness of life and the difficulty of making and sustaining connections.

"[10] According to Daniel Mendelsohn, writing for New York magazine, "Johnson's oh-so-slightly futuristic flights of fancy, his vaguely Blade Runner–esque visions of a cluttered, anaerobic American culture, illustrate something very real, very current: the way we must embrace the unknown, take risks, in order to give flavor and meaning to life.