Denis Johnson

The lives of Skip Sands, a spy-in-training engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong, and brothers Bill and James Houston, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war, intertwine in a novel of America during the Vietnam War.

Tree of smoke

Chris Dailey

Massive novel ostensibly about the CIA in Vietnam from the early sixties to the end of the decade but really about living myths and the greener grass even if its actually a patch of mud. A meandering, and sometime plodding storyline, is supported mainly by the superb writing that lulls you with its simplicity and elegance before it arrives with sometimes stunning depth (e.g., "I didn't know how to act, my had never died before."). The cast of of half a dozen plus characters are almost entirely fully developed (as they should be over 614 pages) but it was difficult to empathize and connect with any single one. The most endearing is Francis X Sands, aka the Colonel, but he's almost frustratingly mythological to the point where his own death is a mysterious unknown. He's the focal point that drives nearly all plot lines, though his perspective is rarely shared. Stymying in length and sometimes story but rewarding in prose and emotional exploration.

Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me. This is the story of Skip Sands—spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong—and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature. Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson's first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date. Tree of Smoke is the 2007 National Book Award Winner for Fiction.

A Novel

Tree of Smoke

Melody Izard

The Vietnam War (or conflict as some might insist) came right on the heels of the “good war”. And young men went off to fight, hoping they were fighting for the same noble cause they thought their fathers fought for, but they only discovered that the “good war” was a myth. The basic rules of war – don’t kill the animals, don’t rape their women – were initially obeyed – but as they became men at the age of 18 they learned there were no rules. The repercussions of the evils of the climate of the chemical infused existence (and yes, I use chemical to mean all manner of things) the soldiers in Vietnam endured followed some of them home, and the vets with scrambled heads took their place in the lines of the homeless shelters, flop houses and low-wage paying jobs. They tried to fit in to the life back home using the same set of rules they had learned to accept while defending democracy and capitalism. 

This book left me breathless and with a tense neck and shoulders and a sour, growly stomach whenever I would finish a chapter. I took the horrors dealt with in The Tree of Smoke with me as I tried to interact with my coworkers, visit with friends, cook dinner and converse with my husband. Always, I was thinking of war and this book. And I can guarantee you, it what'n no good war I was thinking about. 

This book is that powerful. And as I watch the news unfold about the Auburn University student who was killed. And I read that the suspect has just come off a 16 month tour of Iraq, (his mother says he has not been the same since he returned) I look over my shoulder fearing that the characters of the book have crawled out of the pages and followed me home.

Tree of Smoke is the 2007 National Book Award Winner for Fiction. One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year Named a Best Book of the Year by Time, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, Slate, The National Book Critics Circle, The Christian Science Monitor. . . . Tree of Smoke is the story of William "Skip" Sands, CIA--engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong--and the disasters that befall him. It is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert and into a war where the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In the words of Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times, Tree of Smoke is "bound to become one of the classic works of literature produced by that tragic and uncannily familiar war."

I.m. ruzz

Unable to connect to the constant rotary of characters and seemingly pointless goings on, at page 150 I decided to swallow the cost of the book and set it aside. Perhaps I will come back to it at some point.. like when the world runs out of books.

Tree of smoke

Reviews