Tree of Smoke: A Novel (edit title)

• Rated 2 stars

“I found this novel to be meandering and unfocused. It has all the trappings and signifiers of "the great novel," but not the coherence. While there were plenty of appealing (and characteristic) Johnson literary flourishes, there were also too many annoying lapses into genre cliches. Sentences such as "His focus was amazing" during a spy vs. spy cafe meeting set piece would be better suited to an airport spy paperback than a National Book Award winner. The frequent name dropping of Graham Greene's "The Quiet American" seemed like a plea by the author to be taken seriously.”

• Rated 0 stars

“AMAZING”

• Rated 4 stars

“Another epic dark Vietnam novel. Really tremendous and compelling.”

• Rated 3 stars

“This was a tough read but gave me such insight to why some soldiers returned from several tours in Vietnam such different men! This explained a lot to me about my brother's life choice.”

• Rated 5 stars

“This book has in its first few pages one of the most unforgettable scenes I can recall in a novel. And the book builds on that. Among other things, it's an exploration of how war changes and corrupts everything it touches. It's an uncontrollable force, which, once launched, has a fierce and pitiless life of its own.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Well written but I don't get it.”

• Rated 4 stars

“I listened to the unabridged audio of this book about the Vietnam War. It rang true--aburd, violent and muddled. It's a detailed and engrossing listen, and the narrator is excellent.”

• Rated 0 stars

“Overview: Editorial Review.
*Winner of the National Book Award.*
*One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year*

Named a "Best Book of the Year" by Time MAgazine, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Amazon.com, Salon, Slate, The National Book Critics Circle, The Christian Science Monitor....

"Tree of Smoke" is the story of William "Skip" Sands, CIA--engaged in Pschological Operations against the Vietcong--and the disasters that befall him. It is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert and into a war where the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In the words of Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times, "Tree of Smoke" is "bound to become one of the classic works of literature produced by that tragic and uncannily familiar war."”

• Rated 1 stars

“One of the only books I just a gave up on mid-way through. It wasn't getting better and I realized my time is too valuable to struggle through the rest. Understand it's critically aclaimed and all that, but I never got it.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Phew! Finished in time to return the book, which has been recalled. I really enjoyed the last third of the novel, when the characters and their stories began to come together. Some of the writing and most of the dialog/conversations are exceptionally realistic and well written. I must admit that I am confused by the plot. Was Skip the puppet or the puppet master? The colonel accuses him of being a traitor...is that a realistic accusation or an example of Psy Ops warfare? the reader is left to wonder what is real and is what the reader/public is told ever the truth...is there a truth or is it all contextual? General themes for me were sin and redemption, good vs evil, the devastation (physical and emotional) and disillusionment of war, and the war machine.”