Tree of Smoke

A Novel

Denis Johnson

Picador

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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, Amazon.com, Salon, Slate, The National Book Critics Circle, The Christian Science Monitor. . . .

Tree of Smoke is the story of William "Skip" Sands, CIA--engaged in Pschological 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."

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Chapter one
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 themwhat had happened to the President. The two marines sat with the three sailors on the bunks in the Quonset hut for transient enlisted men, watching the air conditioner drip water into a coffee can and drinking beer.

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Reviews

Praise for Tree of Smoke

"Denis Johnson is a true American artist, and Tree of Smoke is a tremendous book."--The New York Times Book Review

"The God I want to believe in has a voice and a sense of humor like Denis Johnson's."--Jonathan Franzen
 
"I can't be sure that there's been a better American novel published in the past ten years. It is a masterpiece."--The Miami Herald

"It will . . . get inside your head like the war it is describing--mystifying, horrifying, mesmerizing. [Johnson] has written a book that by the end wraps around you as tightly as a snake."--The Washington Post Book World

"Tree of Smoke is a masterpiece of language and depth."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Johnson has captured the zeitgeist of American experience as surely as Twain, Hemingway, or Ellison."--New York Post

"Opens a window onto a world of mystery, war, and intrigue whose importance in the (usually) unwritten history of our republic can't be denied."--Chicago Tribune
 
"Johnson has written his War and Peace."--Harper's Magazine

 

Reviews from Goodreads

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Ryan  rated it  
Nov 5, 2011
This is a powerful, well-written book, and one of the best I've ever read about the Vietnam war, though it's less about the direct experience of war, and more about the madness, surreality, and moral confusion that swirls around war's fire (the "tree of smoke"). Johnson is a writer's write ...more
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David  rated it  
Apr 13, 2011
Published in 2007, Denis Johnson’s Tree Of Life is about no less a bigger subject than the Vietnam War and its global ramifications, as told from the perspective of an ambitious young C.I.A. agent named Skip Sands. Beginning with the assassination of JFK, Sands stumbles through the next thirty years ...more
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Frederick  rated it  
Feb 26, 2009
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 des ...more
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About the Author

Denis Johnson

Denis Johnson is the author of seven works of fiction, three collections of poetry, and one book of reportage. He is the recipient of a Lannan Fellowship and a Whiting Writers' Award, among many other honors for his work.

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Available Formats and Book Details

Tree of Smoke
A Novel
Denis Johnson
Award

National Book Awards - Winner

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
Picador
September 2008
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780312427740
ISBN10: 0312427743
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 720 pages
$16.00
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Unabridged Compact Disc

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Unabridged Compact Disc
Macmillan Audio
September 2007
Unabridged Compact Disc
ISBN: 9781427202147
ISBN10: 1427202141
Audio Run Time: 23:00
$59.95

Unabridged Digital Audio

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Unabridged Digital Audio
Macmillan Audio
September 2007
Unabridged Digital Audio
ISBN: 9781427202154
ISBN10: 142720215X
Audio Run Time: 23:00
$29.95

Hardcover

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Hardcover
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
September 2007
Hardcover
ISBN: 9780374279127
ISBN10: 0374279128
6 x 9 inches, 624 pages
$27.00

e-Book Agency

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e-Book Agency
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
September 2007
e-Book Agency
ISBN: 9780374708405
ISBN10: 0374708401
624 pages
$9.99
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