Tree of Smoke

A Novel

De: Denis Johnson

Narrado por: Will Patton

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.

©2007 Denis Johnson (P)2007 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Reseñas de la Crítica

• Audie Award Winner, Literary Fiction, 2008

“Patton is outstanding...[his] performance is quiet, powerful, and gut-wrenching....This is MUST listening.” —AudioFile Magazine

“This is the very talented Will Paton's greatest performance as a reader so far. His range of voices and evocation of character--the hopeful, the innocent, the cynical, the despairing and the mad--bring the tale to even more terrible and blistered life than the book itself, making it a 23-hour excursion into mesmerizing darkness.” —The Washington Post

“Will Patton's reading of \"Tree of Smoke\" is superb...The experience overall is one of hallucinatory horror, laugh-out-loud outrage, of sadness at the tremendous waste of lives, money and the national pride that went into Vietnam and did not return.” —Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Didn’t know what to expect

I’m not familiar with this area of life but I found comfort in the different paths in which this taken and a reflection upon history fact my presence is altered by this book

Vietnam laid bare open

If you took Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and pumped it with steroids, you get Denis Johnson’s “Tree of Smoke”. I normally stay completely away from books about Vietnam. I lived through it plus it has been over done. But, this is a hell of a good book. The interweaving of characters through time, the rawness of war, the changed lives of soldiers and others in the fight, it all made this a compelling, intense read that I found to be very, very good. This book will be on my mind for a long time.

for what?

Getting through the whole of it was something of an ordeal. A very powerful book, but one that left we wondering "why's" -- why it was written, why it was reviewed with such critical favor, and why I persevered? The writing was beautiful and evocative. Many images and ideas were disturbing. But there was little I took away other than relief that my fate did not take me to Vietnam during the conflict. But I already knew that. I found few characters warranting any sympathy, even if many were interesting. The audio performance was great, but I can't say I recommend this work.

Overrated

I enjoyed the book immensely for the most part. The Vietnam era war story was full of suspense, and was so well narrated by Will Paton that I was completely hooked to it. And then ... and then, the story turned to Malaysia ... and everything fell apart; because the author's ignorance and prejudice suddenly began to show all too conspicuously. Totally anticlimactic. In the whole, I was disappointed.

Brilliant writing

Flashes of incandescence in a complex story woven together brilliantly. My first book by Johnson but definitely not my last.