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Tree of Smoke

3.55 of 5 stars 3.55 · rating details · 4,865 ratings · 897 reviews

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—...more

Hardcover, 614 pages

Published September 4th 2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published 2007)

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May 11, 2008 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Vietnam War Buffs

Shelves: novels

From this book I learned to carefully check materials before checking them out of my local library. When I saw Tree of Smoke on the shelf, I happily checked it out and couldn't wait to get it home and start reading it. I am a fan of Denis Johnson's work, and this was his first novel in about nine years.

When I flipped to the title page, there was what looked like a flattened booger on it. I really wanted to read the book so I quickly flipped the page and started reading anyway. A few minutes late...more

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Mar 28, 2008 Joshua Canaan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am not reviewing this book, as I consider myself to be utterly unqualified and am not sufficiently infatuated with my own sense of taste. I liked it. A lot. Hence the stars. There.

What I'm really delighting in right now, however, is how thoroughly unqualified B.R. Myers proved himself to be as well. His Atlantic Monthly review (found at: my link text) of "Tree of Smoke" is a display of such blind zealotry that I can't decide between crying out for him to be publicly horsewhipped and merely lau...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's quite true that, from the United States' perspective, the Second World War was the last conflict that could be considered a feel-good success. Everything since has either yet to be concluded, or produced a stalemate or checkmate that provided, at best, a wan satisfaction; at worst, an inflamed and interminable bout of indigestion—and, of the latter, certainly none more painful and unsettling than those long years of struggle that encompassed the Vietnam War. To the nation that defended Sout...more It's quite true that, from the United States' perspective, the Second World War was the last conflict that could be considered a feel-good success. Everything since has either yet to be concluded, or produced a stalemate or checkmate that provided, at best, a wan satisfaction; at worst, an inflamed and interminable bout of indigestion—and, of the latter, certainly none more painful and unsettling than those long years of struggle that encompassed the Vietnam War. To the nation that defended Southeast Asia from Japan's imperial dream in the mid-Forties it must have seemed that another glorious and successful partnership would be worked in ridding the area of the peril of expansionary communism; to have thus found themselves considered the aggressors, the imperialists, the baby-killers, worked some serious bad juju upon the mindset of America, one from which it took decades to recover its self-esteem; it has still to recover its equilibrium. So it was that upon recent consideration after a long spell of banishment in the shelves, Tree of Smoke held little appeal for me—who wants to revisit that theatre of epic futility, especially when it has seemingly been mined, in film and in print, for all its worth?—but the back cover blurb promising a main character who was a CIA operative engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong planted a seed of interest in my mind that blossomed forth a couple of days later with a strength and pull that I could not resist.

I thought this was really good. I wanted to love it, but I couldn't; I was afraid I might dislike it, but I didn't; it's a book that seems to have divided its readers into two passionate camps, both of whose arguments I can now appreciate—but I'm firmly aligned with its fans, holding this thick, smoky, filmic page-turner to be a flawed work of genius. I didn't care for some of the plot decisions and turns that Johnson opted for, and I was occasionally tempted—though I never acquiesced—to start skimming where I sensed that Johnson was going off on another lengthy and meandering tangent; but neither of these negatives amount to much compared to Johnson's ability to pen fiction of a cinematic quality, in sweltering jungle and arid desert locations, that chronicles the destruction and dissipation and obsessions of various interconnected individuals during the turbid chaos of the Vietnam War. His aptitude for flowing, verisimilar dialogue makes this a novel that is driven by its character's conversations; indeed, it is frequently jarring in that major situations or developments are delivered in succinct summaries at the onset of a new chapter, and the character's subsequent discourses the primary means of fleshing out the details of what exactly transpired and, more importantly, how its ripples will affect the large cast of characters who populate the pages.

Although the story unfolds across select years of the Vietnam War—and concludes with one of its aftermath—its themes are applicable across all modern day conflicts: Johnson's true setting is the Fog of War, and how, beneath its vast, disorienting, and vivifying blanket, all manner of individuals—be they religious care workers, patriotic intelligence officers, Vietnamese regime supporters or communist subversives, raw rookie volunteer infantrymen, or legendary heroic figures—can and do lose their way, become corrupted or degraded or upended or abraded to the degree that they no longer recognize themselves or the combination of means and ends that have seized control of their waking lives. This is a hallucinatory, smothering, violent demesne, with a CIA that is fractured, divided, and working out disparate and competing operations that break both the law and its agents' spirits; while the army is presented as a disorganized and chaotic presence, an arm that allows its soldiers the opportunity to engage in fucking up the Vietnamese, channeling their energies into a murderous violence that ofttimes slips beyond the control of a unit's officers. War is both a hellish nightmare and an ideal and exciting testing ground for men, particularly when they experience it young; every character—but one—eagerly anticipates entering Vietnam, each with various idealizations of what they are there to achieve and how they desire to implement these goals—and each will see these desires crumble, idealizations turn into doubts—everything become shambolic and corrosive. These individuals came into the war with the expectation of having the abstractions that etiolated their lives given definitive form, become reality—but the truth of the matter is that what reality had existed for them was stretched and thinned out, become abstract. Southeast Asia is a sweltering, humid, liquid environment, ripe for dark nights of the soul and diseases of both the flesh and the spirit. The bifurcation of the patient and enduring natives—having cast off the French and now chary of this new power arrived upon their shores—and what they desire for their sorely tested homeland, and the energized, well-intended Americans, with their competitive scheming and convoluted plotting always on the verge of breaking apart into warlordism, is nicely handled.

The story is driven by the trio of William "Skip" Sands, a CIA agent assigned to a Psy-Ops unit headed by his paternal uncle, The Colonel—a larger-than-life legend whose exploits prior to, during, and after the Second World War have taken on a mythological status—and the latter's perfervid and mindfuckery-minded disciple, Jimmy Storm, a sergeant on loan from the US Army. The Colonel has commandeered an Army platoon, a Vietnamese village and adjacent mountain-top Landing-Zone, and a substantial amount of bureaucratic interest and rivalry in his effort to implement a convoluted and precarious scheme to shatter the North Vietnamese Will-To-Fight at the very highest level. Riding escort duty is the intermingled tale of the Houston brothers—Bill, who never sets foot in Vietnam, though—or perhaps because—he is marked by early death experiences; and his younger brother James, an aimless teenager trapped in the dead-end, blue-collar tedium of Phoenix, Arizona, who views service in the war as an opportunity to effect some mayhem whilst collecting a steady paycheque and escape the stifling confines of an existence that scares him—and a spirited nurse for an Orphan's NGO, Kathy Jones, who provides a bit of Canadian fervor and the Calvinistic determinism that threatens to either damn or absolve these characters up front, depending upon which angle of Hell you viewed them from. These figures touch upon the lives of their Filipino and Vietnamese counterparts and servants, who are all working towards their own particular ends, ones that may—or may not—be aligned with a loyalty to their respective foreign benefactors and/or employers.

There is a long introduction that takes place within the Philippines, a prelude to the coming experience of Vietnam—and besides being a brilliantly detailed set piece, it completely and expertly delineates how both Americans and natives will be ruined by their immersion in a conflict without clear-cut borders, endowed with blurry endpoints and enframed by dubious philosophies. This is bookended with a lengthy epilogue in which the reader gets provided with snapshots of the destruction meted out by the passing of the years, the way this terrible tropical conflict has infected its character's lives, and how one particular mythological obsession has seared itself into the flesh; the cooling words of redemptive hope that drop the curtain after seven hundred and two pages offer a brief palliative to these terrible burns—but a palliative only: the scarring is permanent. (less)

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Jun 05, 2010 Jason rated it 1 of 5 stars

It's here folks!! How to Win the National Book Award for Dummies! Denis Johnson has pulled heavily from this publication for his novel Tree of Smoke. Let's highlight the recommendations he used to win the Book Award for fiction.

#3. Explore a topic of great controversy for the country and its people.
Johnson: the Vietnam War.

#6. Story must be sweeping, at least 500 pages.
Johnson: 614.

#7. Include at least 5 main characters with individual story threads.
Johnson: 8.

7.a. Threads should intertwine but

...more

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Dec 05, 2007 Jason Pettus rated it 4 of 5 stars

(My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

So before anything else, a little history lesson...

From the mid-1800s until World War II, the Asian country now known as Vietnam was in actuality controlled by France and operated as a colony; during WWII, then, the Japanese invaded the area so as to install a Vichy-style fascist government. It was the Vietnamese, in fac...more (My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

So before anything else, a little history lesson...

From the mid-1800s until World War II, the Asian country now known as Vietnam was in actuality controlled by France and operated as a colony; during WWII, then, the Japanese invaded the area so as to install a Vichy-style fascist government. It was the Vietnamese, in fact, who eventually rose up and ran this group out of the country at the end of the war, led and funded by local communists who were being secretly supported by Soviet Russia; at this point the French tried to come back in and re-establish colonialism, but the 'Viet Minh' were having none of it. That led to what's now known as the 'First Vietnam War,' or 'Indochina War' if you want to get technical, which lasted for roughly a decade and which the French (backed secretly by US resources) lost; it led in 1954 to a splitting of the country into a North and South Vietnam, with a referendum two years later that was supposed to politically reunify them again. The referendum never happened, though, because of the US continuing to stockpile more and more military in the southern half of the country; it soon led to the 'Second Vietnam War,' the enemy now known as the Viet Cong, the war many more Americans are familiar with, the one that many people say we lost as well at the end of 1973 (which was more about us giving up fighting, which is why it's contested whether we should call it "losing a war"). And thus did the entirety of Vietnam become communist in the mid-'70s, which was kind of a disaster until 1986 when the country first embraced free-market capitalism; now in 2007 they're one of the economically fastest-growing countries on the planet, certainly of the so-called "third world," and last year hosted over three and a half million international tourists.

I bring you this little tutorial, of course, because you'll need it in order to get through the absolutely mindblowing Tree of Smoke, the latest novel by revered writer Denis Johnson, and a few weeks ago officially the recipient of this year's National Book Award. It. Is. An. Astounding. Book., make no mistake, one that floored me in a particular way a novel hasn't done to me in years; but it's also a book that asks a lot out of you as a reader, not the least of which is a good four to six weeks of commitment, not to mention a fairly good understanding of 20th-century Vietnamese history before starting, plus of course with it presenting a challenge to many radical liberals as to how to think of the very concept of "war" itself. It's one of those big books, you know, and by "big" I mean in a grand, old-skool, James Michener or Herman Wouk kinda way; a book with a dozen main characters, two dozen other minor ones, all of them scattered around the planet and coming to the same central core of a story from a dozen different backgrounds and mindsets. There are good things about such books and bad things; in this case, in my opinion, a lot more good than bad, but that's partly because I'm a big fan of these kinds of novels in the first place. It's certainly one of those books that people love giving awards to, because it feels good to give an award to a book like this; it's a hefty one, not only emotionally and intellectually but also its sheer physical weight, something that makes you feel like you really accomplished something by making it all the way through.

So why does Johnson's name ring a bell, you're thinking? Well, because...(less)

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Feb 24, 2009 William rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you like an epic story this is for you. I wanted to give it 4 stars but the number of interwoven stories deterred me. I can see this being a plus for many. There are no heroes or saviors here. If you need at least one good guy in your novel you won't find one here. No matter how heroic they start out to be. If your of a certain age as I am when Vietnam and S.E. Asia were the every day topic of conversation then the amazing ability of the author to bring those headlines to life and put you ins...more

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Nov 22, 2008 Diane rated it 2 of 5 stars

Recommended to Diane by: The New York Times

I must not be smart enough for this book because I didn't love it the way I know I should have. The critical reviews of this book were amazing--words like "masterpiece" were used often (see eg NYT review). To me, this novel felt like work, so much so that I had to take breaks and read the truly awful Sushi for Beginners just to get through it. The story is complicated because there are so many characters it becomes hard to focus on the so-called "main" ones. The narrative changes frequently and...more

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Feb 19, 2008 Alex rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anybody

Tree of Smoke is something like a good, plot-driven thriller (like LeCarré more than Clancy) injected with a heady dose of fog of war. It's a novel that looks at the Vietnam War through a wonderfully tuned eye for the humane, a critical piece that has no truck with the cliché activisms we're used to. It's a novel about the human effects of fighting for abstractions. It's about forgiveness and salvation, about guilt itself in the face of the unswerving trueness of death. It's about what we do to...more

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Feb 21, 2009 W rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who has passed Am Lit 100 & 101

First of all, TREE OF SMOKE is as similar to JESUS' SON as DUBLINERS is with ULYSSES. Compare a writer messing around with his experience and craft and an author who has come under the full blown power of his pen. One can also say TREE OF SMOKE is about Vietnam in the same way MOBY DICK is about whaling. I will wait until a second reading, but we may have our first great American novel since Faulkner and, in a certain sense, Dreiser.
“Tree of Smoke” is a more literal translation of the Hebrew b...more

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Jun 17, 2008 Phillip rated it 2 of 5 stars

Like many of you, I can't figure out why this book won the NBA. Not that DJ isn't a great writer, and parts of TOS are wonderfully constructed. But as a reader of hundreds of books on Vietnam and a three year all expenses paid visit there during the war, I didn't find insight into a darn thing, nothing new or meaningful. And I can turn and look at dozens of books on my shelf which are all of the above. And they didn't win squat. Obviously, some of you did.

Some of the comments (few actual 'revie...more

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Jan 28, 2008 Roderick rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book makes me want to be a novelist at the same time that it makes me realise (again) how very hard it is to pull off. Denis Johnson manages to be psychologically concise and lyrical over and over again, which strikes me as incredibly difficult. How many different people can one person manage to be subtle and perceptive about at the same time? A lot, apparently, if you know what you're doing. Unlike, say, Ian McEwan. Just saying.

I'm having quite a hard time keeping up with a succession of c...more

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Aug 25, 2007 Shauna rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hm. Let me back up here (back up, back up) because I'm not sure anyone wants to hear this.

It ain't all that.

There are big problems with some redundant characters and both flat writing and listless plotting in the opening chapters. Then it gets good. Then the last section kills. But I can't help but think that if this were a debut, I would not have persisted through the sloppier portions of it, and I really don't think epic is Johnson's game.

Now let me add one big saving grace that has nothing to...more

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Jan 15, 2012 wally rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: johnson-denis

this will be the 2nd johnson-denis for me...the other, nobody move and that recent, within the last six months or so. give or take.

last night at 3:00 a.m. president kennedy had been killed. seaman houston and the other two recruits slept while the first reports traveled around the world. there was one small nightspot on the island, a dilapidated club with big revolving fans in the ceiling and one bar and one pinball game; the two marines who ran the club had come by to wake them up and tell them...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Caitlin rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Tree of Smoke", in my opinion, is an all-or-nothing kind of book. You are either going to love it or hate. Claimed as the "Catch-22 of our times" - and given that the Heller novel is my all-time favorite - I suppose it is inevitable that I would love it.

As much as "Catch-22" was an anti-Vietnam hidden behind a WWII novel, "Tree of Smoke" can be read as an anti-Iraq novel hidden behind a Vietnam novel.

It is a gripping novel that opens with Kennedy assassination in 1963. It follows Skip Sands, a...more

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Feb 04, 2009 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm still not sure what I feel about this book. Frankly, after reading a number reviews here on goodreads I can sympathize with them all. So maybe that makes it a fascinating book. If you are wondering whether to put this on your list read 10 or so of the first reviews and you'll save yourself some time.

Yes this book IS about "Vietnam". You know the war. Another book 'Nam. And I think to compare it to other earlier novels on the topic is fair. But it's approaching 40 years later and he actually...more I'm still not sure what I feel about this book. Frankly, after reading a number reviews here on goodreads I can sympathize with them all. So maybe that makes it a fascinating book. If you are wondering whether to put this on your list read 10 or so of the first reviews and you'll save yourself some time.

Yes this book IS about "Vietnam". You know the war. Another book 'Nam. And I think to compare it to other earlier novels on the topic is fair. But it's approaching 40 years later and he actually finished it now (even though he had notes on it back in '83). I looked a bit for interviews with Johnson on 'Tree of Smoke' because I wanted to know what he's said about it. Don't get me wrong I love all the erudite reviews and the reviews of reviews but just like in lit class I keep wondering what the author wanted to say. Until he speaks out I guess I'll have to tell you what I feel.

First it wasn't about the 60's-70's. It was about now. Iraq. Afghanistan. Yes. But for me it was about the characters struggling with the ever shifting vagueness of the moral world today. So you want to love your country and defend it against the nihilistic forces of the religious mafia nationalists. But once you take the stance, once you put up your dukes the world shifts. Smarts, bravado, faith, loyalty they all aren't enough to keep you from getting really dirty and confused. The main characters in the book all think they have a way to figure war out. How to deal with. Just look at where they end up. Is it a moral lesson? I don't think either. Most of the characters come to some sort of peace with their flawed viewpoints and ways of copping.

As has been pointed out the book is a bit obtuse to start and takes awhile to pick up the pace. For those that need a more straight line narrative this book will be a trial. I found that I had to make enough time to finish a full sub story so that I wasn't lost when I came back after a longer absence. And if you're looking for a plot you can predict, well move on.

I often judge the strength of a book by the effect it has on me. This book disturbed me. The characters disturbed me. The story is messy and so are the characters. I didn't find myself rooting for them but I sure wanted to know what would happen. I was sometimes confused by it's complexity. And I could help feeling that Johnson was trying to tell me something.

Again just look at the reviews and you'll see that the book must be multi-dimensional if readers (critics too) see it in so many different ways. I recommend it in part based on that.(less)

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Dec 10, 2008 Dennis D. rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who have trouble sleeping.

I don't usually read others' reviews before writing one of my own, but I had to in this case, because I figured I must have been reading a different book than everyone else. I picked this up in the first place because so many people liked it (National Book Award, numerous Top 10 lists for 2007, including NYT, Time, and EW). I rarely give up on a book, but I came close with this one a number of times; for instance, at page 300, 400, 500...even 600. I forged on, buoyed by all the acclaim and my ow...more I don't usually read others' reviews before writing one of my own, but I had to in this case, because I figured I must have been reading a different book than everyone else. I picked this up in the first place because so many people liked it (National Book Award, numerous Top 10 lists for 2007, including NYT, Time, and EW). I rarely give up on a book, but I came close with this one a number of times; for instance, at page 300, 400, 500...even 600. I forged on, buoyed by all the acclaim and my own inability to just give up and move on. So give me my damned cookie, I finished the thing.

The novel in a nutshell is largely about Skip Sands, a CIA trainee working for the military in Vietnam during the war, and assigned to his uncle, the legendary Colonel (serious echoes of the deranged Col. Kurtz here). But it's also about Trung, an NVA spy, and his uncle, Hao. And raw US newbie soldiers Bill & James Houston. And Kathy, the missionary/nurse from Canada. And solider Jimmy Storm. The priest, Father Callahan...Callaghan?...makes a brief but memorable appearance (screw it, I'm not going to open the book again to look the actual name up). As does CIA operative Voss. And a CIA assassin. And the Professor. And Gilligan. Yes, there were a lot of characters and storylines; some intersected, and some didn't, and it was very chaotic, just like war itself. War is hell, I get it.

But does reading about it have to be hell, too? I can handle ‘long,’ that wasn’t the issue. Situations and circumstances struck me as wholly unoriginal. I caught bits of “Apocalypse Now,” as I mentioned. But also “Platoon,” “A Bright Shining Lie,” even “The Last Picture Show.” Characters that are built up as if to be a major part of the story have little to do or say, and disappear for pages and pages on end. Often, their stories are brought to a close “off camera” and in a matter-of-fact fashion, which I thought blunted their impact. Denis Johnson reportedly spent a long time writing this, so I have to assume that these stylistic choices were his. As a novel, “Tree of Smoke” just didn’t hang together for me. I thought it was meandering, unfocused, and in need of some serious editing.

Having said all of that, there were large chunks of this narrative that I really liked. Some of the prose is truly beautiful. The parallels that Johnson is making to the Iraq war are unmistakable and unnerving. Bill Houston’s encounter in the jungle when he first arrives in the Phillipines is heart-rending. If a few of the subjects/arcs were short stories as part of a thematic collection, I would have liked the whole thing a lot more.
(less)

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Mar 30, 2013 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke is the American literary novel at its best: absorbing, epic, challenging, meditative, marvelously poetic from one sentence to the next. To label this labyrinthine, relentless tale of an infantryman, sailor, CIA spook, ARVN officer, Vietcong double agent, and others a "Vietnam novel" seems to do it it a disservice. And yet, that's what it is: a devastating journey through the Vietnam War, to all the dark crevices of the American experience and the human condition. Jo...more

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Jan 02, 2009 John and Kris rated it 4 of 5 stars

A rare review...

I prefer non-fiction...

Tree of Smoke, like Franzen’s The Corrections, was a Target impulse purchase because it won the National Book Award.

Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke won the National Book Award due to the fact that Johnson is, supposedly, a writer’s writer. If you or I would’ve submitted this long Vietnam era manuscript it would’ve been tossed in the trash heap by any publisher looking to earn a living because of its length and lack of focus. If I wasn’t clear, Tree of Smoke...more

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Jul 29, 2008 Ben rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: B.R. Myers

I admit I was biased toward this novel even before I opened it, due partly to prior admiration toward Denis Johnson and partly to the fact that this is the most beautifully designed book I own. I just want to hold it and look at it and rub it against my face.

That said.

Everything is accomplished in this book. The Vietnam War is approached from a variety of angles--infantry, tunnel rat, South Vietnamese fighter pilot, North Vietnamese agent, CIA operative, outsourced assassin--to attempt to give a...more

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Jul 05, 2008 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars

I finally finished this amazing book. I am a fan of anything about the Vietnam war, you know, the first one we lost. That is what this novel is about, and naturally delves into each characters' "heart of darkness."
Denis Johnson paints unfiltered portraits of a general, a corporal, a marine, a navy newbie, VC's, CIA operatives, assasins on both sides, a volunteer nurse, a priest, a double-agent, a girlfriend back home, an ignorant mom- every possible character perspective of a war that began SNA...more

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Feb 22, 2008 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

Reading this book is a little like reading Don Delillo novel; it is so full of descriptive passages and internal mind-scapes that one could get lost reading a page after page, or lost, needing to go back wondering the thematic importance of the last excerpt. I sometimes can't bring myself to put it down and go to much needed sleep late at night, or cannot bring myself to pick it up because the enormity of it leaves me bewildered. I am beginning to think that this is, in part, due to the format o...more

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Feb 15, 2008 Grant Faulkner rated it 2 of 5 stars

I think I'm Denis Johnson's ideal reader in some ways--his first novel, Angels, and then his collection of short stories, Jesus's Son, are among my favorite books. So I was eager to read Tree of Smoke, especially after several reviews elevated it to masterpiece status and it was nominated for a National Book Award.

The novel is ambitious, but doesn't deliver. The things Johnson does so well--for example, his keen, poignant portraits of people desperately clinging to the edge of life--don't quite...more

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Feb 03, 2008 Tripp rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Literary fiction lovers, international relations students

There are Tree of Smoke lovers and haters. Count me on the side of the lovers. The time shifts in the first section might make you think you are in for a trippy update of Dispatches, but the book quickly moves into a year by year account of the destruction of a number of American and Vietnamese lives.

The title represents a number of images and themes in the book. It references a verse in the Bible which a grizzled intelligence vet uses as a code name and a kind of mantra. The tree is used to sig...more There are Tree of Smoke lovers and haters. Count me on the side of the lovers. The time shifts in the first section might make you think you are in for a trippy update of Dispatches, but the book quickly moves into a year by year account of the destruction of a number of American and Vietnamese lives.

The title represents a number of images and themes in the book. It references a verse in the Bible which a grizzled intelligence vet uses as a code name and a kind of mantra. The tree is used to signify ghosts, mushroom clouds, fire, threat and, I think, the potentially weak nature of family connection. Most of the characters wrestle with family members, some betraying and some trying to save, but nearly all lead to disaster. And like smoke, many find that their family is simply gone.

Religious imagery is also significant, with characters wondering just who the Judas is and what the nature of betrayal and redemption is. Again, it is primarily at the hands of family that the action takes place and when some are accused falsely it is terribly sad. In one case, people commit wrong to help their family, and the portrayal of it is morally ambiguous.

While this is a Vietnam novel, very little combat is depicted. This book is more in the mold of spy fiction with its exploration of the life of the operative and the Quiet American (which one character references more than once.) Ultimately it is about the human cost of war and it shows the cost is even worse than is usually shown.

There is a wide range of characters, including a Canadian nurse whose husband disappears in the Philippines, two working class brothers who experiences in the Navy and Army do not set them up well for civilian life, a Vietnamese Viet Cong volunteer who now doubts his choice, and the elder operative. The nephew of said operative, named Skip, is the core. He, and his uncle, ties the characters together and he goes through the worst of all of them.

The book's epilogue is a bit long, as it covers almost all of the surviving characters in 1983, but it helps wrap up the book. I had to re-read the opening section set in 1963, as it made little sense when first read, but clearly sets up the major themes of the book which include the possibility of spiritual death, betrayal, family and cultures which cannot comprehend one another.

Ignore the haters who, in my view, criticize tangential detail. My first reaction on closing the book was that I needed to read it again because I realized that I missed quite a bit. That is the sign of a great book.(less)

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Jan 31, 2008 Christopher rated it 4 of 5 stars

Denis Johnson's NBA-winning novel reminded me of another major cultural event from last year -- Todd Haynes' Dylan biopic/mindfuck I'm Not There. Both are set mostly in the sixties, and both say less about the decade itself than about the sheen of fantasy that the subsequent years have applied to it. Both attempt, with the highest artistic intentions, to breath life into a tired form -- the Vietnam novel; the rock n roll biopic. Both contain a series of exquisite, even impeccable, gestures, punc...more

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Dec 09, 2007 Doug Schrashun rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's hard not to be disappointed with a Denis Johnson novel. Something about everything he does allows it to be possibly the greatest writing thing to be ever written, but then he always sort of fucks it up.

This isn't any different. It's still great in a way, but for someone with an imagination as good as his he seems to get bogged down in facts, accuracy and boring things pitfalls like history. Of course the book has it's great points - showing the relationship between fear and boredom in war,...more

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Dec 18, 2007 Chad Walker rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2nd-life, american, literature, new-century

I read the Atlantic Monthly's scathing review of this before buying it, and in retrospect it seems like an eminently unfair judgment of this fantastic book. No, this is indeed ambitious, but Johnson by and large pulls it off. It moves surprisingly quickly; I didn't find it particularly difficult to keep up with the vast mosaic of places and characters and chronologies and time frames; and it has an undeniable emotional heft. It would be worth a second read, and I think some day I may well go bac...more

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Nov 12, 2007 Alex rated it 2 of 5 stars

Hmm.

That was the short deadened sound I made when I read the last line of this book last night. Not 'wow' or 'stunning' or 'masterpiece,' just a small involuntary expression of respect for the forces at work in this book that never fully materialize. Yes, it is about the soul -- and in the last hundred pages that word begins appearing with a striking frequency -- and yes, it is about the machine of war -- again, mentioned explicitly a number of times near the end -- but unfortunately it is not a...more

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Sep 15, 2007 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars

I think I've gotta give this another go, with much more attention. I think I've been angry that every book isn't the revelation that _Jesus' Son_ was, and so my enthusiasm for them may be more muted than they deserve.

Still, my read of this was that it worked like gangbusters on the sentence-level, but the thing was a mess--and not the good kind of disorienting, confounding, complicating mess, but an overheated yet undercooked kind of mess--in terms of its narrative. For every grand bit, you got...more

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Feb 26, 2009 Frederick Masterman rated it 5 of 5 stars

Any mention of the Vietnam conflict - or better, war - conjures a mood of calamity and heartbreak with little effort. In Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson paints a comprehensive picture of the characters caught in the pain and pathos of the terrible event. Military and civilian persons alike are well described as they find themselves enmeshed in the frustration of a war that has no victory, in which each struggles for her or his own truth in a fog of unrelenting uncertainty and hopelessness. I found...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Brett Richardson rated it 3 of 5 stars

It is said that this isn't quite about politics or platoons as it is about personalities, dreams, and God. Those things are just aspects of people and the whole thing, well, it's just Johnson's attempt at talking about people. Put a person in this circumstance and see what happens.

The semi-peripheral Houston brothers are deadbeat drunks, during war or peacetime, wherever you put them. Sure it changes them some, but basically Johnson is saying that people don't change, even under the most inhuman...more

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About Denis Johnson

Poet, playwright and author Denis Johnson was born in Munich, West Germany in 1949 and was raised in Tokyo, Manila and Washington. He holds a masters' degree from the University of Iowa and has received many awards for his work, including a Lannan Fellowship in Fiction (1993), a Whiting Writer's Award (1986), the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction from the Paris Review for Train Dreams, and most recently,...more

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Quotes from Tree of Smoke

“She had nothing in this world but her two hands and her crazy love for Jesus, who seemed, for his part, never to have heard of her.” — 20 people liked it

“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.” — 9 people liked it

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