Tree of Smoke: A Novel
by Denis Johnson
Smoke and fire(11/26/2007)
I have read quite a bit of Vietnam fiction and non fiction, but I've never read anything that seems to capture the tortured soul of that conflict as sharply — and beautifully — as this book. It is a page-turner but still complex, and the characters seem far more real to me than any I have encountered recently in fiction. I am grateful to the author for having the guts to write "another book about Vietnam" and for powerfully but subtly drawing parallels to our current quagmire, especially in the manipulation and misuse of "intelligence."
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