Farrar, Straus and Giroux
September 2007
On Sale: September 4, 2007
Featuring: Skip Sands
624 pages ISBN: 0374279128 EAN: 9780374279127 Hardcover Add to Wish List
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. Thatβs me.
< This is the story of Skip Sandsβspy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcongβand 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 Johnsonβs first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date.
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All Things Considered - October 10, 2007 All Things Considered - September 4, 2007
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