false 19647590 512643 271074 0374279128 9780374279127 562 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1221586313m/271074.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1221586313s/271074.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/271074.Tree_of_Smoke_A_Novel 3.60 1846 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.]]> 6468 3.87 10131 1645 2007 4 15 false Sun May 11 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 07 10:13:19 -0700 2008 Sun May 11 20:05:34 -0700 2008 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 ...more...]]>