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Tree of Smoke: A Novel
DENIS JOHNSON

Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Denis Johnson
201 reviews (2007) (624p)
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Finalist
National Book Award Winner
New York TimesĀ® Best Fiction Books
TIME Magazine Best Fiction Books
Amazon.com Best Books

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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 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.


Amazon.com Review
Amazon Significant Seven, September 2007: Denis Johnson is one of those few great hopes of American writing, fully capable of pulling out a ground-changing masterpiece, as he did in 1992 with the now-legendary collection, Jesus' Son. Tree of Smoke showed every sign of being his "big book": 600+ pages, years in the making, with a grand subject (the Vietnam War). And in the reading it lives up to every promise. It's crowded with the desperate people, always short of salvation, who are Johnson's specialty, but despite every temptation of the Vietnam dreamscape it is relentlessly sober in its attention to on-the-ground details and the gradations of psychology. Not one of its 614 pages lacks a sentence or an observation that could set you back on your heels. This is the book Johnson fans have been waiting for--along with everybody else, whether they knew it or not. --Tom Nissley


Other Award Winning Books by Denis Johnson
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson
108 reviews (2018) (p) (NBCCA)
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The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson
116 reviews (2014) (240p) (Amazon Top100) (NYT100) (Amazon Top10Lit) (Time Top10) (TIME) (Amazon)
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Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
211 reviews (2011) (128p) (PW Fiction) (NYT100) (Econ) (New Yorker) (NPR) (PP)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
The Name of The World by Denis Johnson
36 reviews (2000) (144p) (PF)
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JESUS' SON: Stories by Denis Johnson
104 reviews (1993) (176p) (NYTimes)
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Denis Johnson Award Stats
Major Prize* Nominations 5  
Unique Books Nominated for a Major Prize* 4  
Pulitzer Prize Wins 0  
Pulitzer Prize Nominations 2 Tree of Smoke: A Novel · Train Dreams ·  
National Book Critics Circle Award Wins 0  
National Book Critics Circle Award Nominations 1 The Largesse of the Sea Maiden ·  
National Book Award Wins 1 Tree of Smoke: A Novel ·  
National Book Award Nominations 1 Tree of Smoke: A Novel ·  
Man Booker Prize Wins 0  
Man Booker Prize Nominations 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Wins 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Nominations 1 The Name of The World ·  

*Major Prize = Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, and PEN/Faulkner Award

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