Summary and Reviews of Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

Media Reviews

The New York Times - Jim Lewis Tree of Smoke is a tremendous book, a strange entertainment, very long but very fast, a great whirly ride that starts out sad and gets sadder and sadder, loops unpredictably out and around, and then lurches down so suddenly at the very end that it will make your stomach flop.

The New York Times Book Review - Michiko Kakutani Bound to become one of the classic works of literature produced by that tragic and uncannily familiar war.

The Seattle Times - Tyrone Beason he immensely talented Johnson ("Jesus' Son," "Resuscitation of a Dead Man") delivers a beautifully layered, insightful and visceral montage of stories that examines the Vietnam War experience from multiple points of view.

The Washington Post - David Ignatius To write a fat novel about the Vietnam War nearly 35 years after it ended is an act of literary bravado. To do so as brilliantly as Denis Johnson has in Tree of Smoke is positively a miracle.

Los Angeles Times - David Ulin It's beautiful writing: with Johnson, the writing is always beautiful.

The Boston Globe - Gail Caldwell Everything in Tree of Smoke is there for a reason, even when it feels desultory and too passionately involved with its own meanderings - there are passages and detours on occasion (particularly the Colonel's mad philosophizing) that seem as labyrinthine as those infamous tunnels. But there are also moments of riveting intrigue, particularly a scene involving an exquisitely depicted German assassin. In a novel of this length and span, it's the authorial sensibility that mandates the story, and Johnson's is aptly fitted to the "vampire mausoleum" that was Vietnam.

The San Francisco Chronicle - David Hellman It will be interesting to see how readers respond to Johnson's novel. Stylistically, it ranges from Hemingwayesque straightforward simplicity to Proustian narrative complexity and descriptive splendor. Johnson brings his talents as a poet to bear, especially when describing the jungles and cities of Asia. But will readers seeking a "thriller" in this text be put off by its literary demands? It will also be interesting to see how more progressive-minded readers will react to a narrative that displays much sympathy toward characters who adamantly believed in the Vietnam War, even while they recognized the futility of it.

Publishers Weekly When the book ends...you feel that America's Vietnam experience has been brought to a closure that's as good as we'll ever get.

Reader Reviews

Katherine Reed
Smoke and fire
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 ...   Read More Pat
I could not put this book down!
This book has just wrapped me into it and I can't stop reading. I was in high school in the 60's with friends going away to this war; many came back not the same. This book gives real insight into the lives of those involved in the war. I found ...   Read More Delilah
Serious editing needed...
Much of the writing in this book is extraordinary, and it really conveys the insanity of war. Nevertheless, I found myself tiring of the the endless drunken, pointless conversations and repetitive scenes of perverse violence and sexuality. The book ...   Read More JMT
Overblown
First things first, I read the book and it is a good read and it kept me interested. It drifts along with characters entering the story that never interact with the main characters at all (or anyone else really). I kept waiting for there to be a ...   Read More

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