Hooray! You have added the first book to your bookshelf. Check it out now!
[−]
  • Search Digit-count Valid ISBN Invalid ISBN Valid Barcode Invalid Barcode
Blog this item

Tree of Smoke

A Novel

By Denis Johnson

(16)

| Hardcover | 9780374279127

Like Tree of Smoke?
Join aNobii to see if your friends read it, and discover similar books!

Sign up for free

Book Description

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 fiContinue

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.

Critics

  • Monstrous cunning

    Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson 614pp, Picador, £16.99 Who'd have thought that Denis Johnson had this kind of whopping, mega-ton novel in him? His last, The Name of the World, ran to a mere 120 pages but still managed to sneak on to the shortlist for ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

  • Tree of Smoke

    Skip Sands is an undercover CIA agent working for Colonel Francis Xavier Sands, who happens to be his uncle, on a psychological operation to oust the Vietcong in the early Sixties. As Skip is sucked into the war in Vietnam, the question of what the A ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

1 Review

Login or Sign Up to write a review

Book Details

  • Rating:
    (16)
    • 5 stars
    • 4 stars
    • 3 stars
    • 2 stars
    • 1 star
  • English Books
  • Hardcover 624 Pages
  • ISBN-10: 0374279128
  • ISBN-13: 9780374279127
  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Pub date: Sep 04, 2007
  • Also available as: Paperback, Audio CD and Others
  • In other languages: other languages Libri Italiani
Improve data of this book

Prices Change currency & sellers

ISBN Edition List Sale Seller
9780374279127 Hardcover $27.00 $23.08 bn.com
$27.00 -- The Book Depository
Other editions →
Added to Shelf Added to Wish List

Inline Translation Mode

Left click to navigate, right click to translate.

inline translation guide

or close

Inline translation is not ready for this page yet.

Inline translation mode.

Share this page with your friends.

The viewport has not loaded.