01
Why it matters
Johnson depicts war as a crisis in which operations and private mythologies become unstable.
Opening the archive
A celebrated work
Tree of Smoke
Denis Johnson2007 selection · Literary fiction
Tree of Smoke
CIA operative Skip Sands enters a psychological operation during the Vietnam War under his legendary uncle. Soldiers, agents, missionaries, and civilians move through violence and compromised belief.
02
Read this if…
You want a sprawling, hallucinatory war novel.
03
Ideas inside
Vietnam Warespionagefaithviolence
Get or borrow
Continue with this book.
Affiliate disclosure: We may earn a commission when you purchase through these links, at no extra cost to you. Editorial selections are independent.
Further reading
Read the critics
Independent reviews and criticism from established publications. Links open at the original outlet.
Primary record
Verify the selection
Every inclusion traces back to the organization that made the selection.
National Book Award for Fiction — official winner recordOfficial record↗ (opens in a new tab)The New York Times — 10 Best Books — official recommendation recordOfficial record↗ (opens in a new tab)Continue reading
From the same conversation
The Sympathizer
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
A communist double agent escapes Saigon with South Vietnamese officers and reports on their California exile. His confession moves through espionage, friendship, filmmaking, and revolutionary violence.
Shadow Country
- National Book Award for Fiction
This reworked trilogy reconstructs the life and killing of Florida planter E. J. Watson. Neighbors, relatives, and Watson offer conflicting accounts of frontier violence.
The Power
- Women’s Prize for Fiction
- NPR Books We Love
- +1
Teenage girls develop the ability to generate electrical force, reversing assumptions about physical power. Four lives trace the upheaval across politics, religion, crime, and media.