Synopsis
Shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Tree of Smoke – the name given to a ‘psyop’ that may or may not be hypothetical and may or may not be officially sanctioned – is Denis Johnson’s most gripping, visionary and ambitious work.
Set across south-east Asia and the United States, and spanning two decades, Tree of Smoke tells the story of Skip Sands, a CIA spy who may or may not be engaged in psychological operations against the Viet Cong. Skating across Vietnam, the Philippines, and the United States, Johnson takes the reader on a surreal, vivid journey, dipping in and out of characters’s lives to reveal fundamental truths at the heart of the human condition.
Part of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the best of modern literature.
Details
Reviews
“The God I want to believe in has a voice and a sense of humor like Denis Johnson's”Jonathan Franzen
“An artist of strange diligence . . . Tree of Smoke is as excessive and messy as Moby Dick . . . It's a big, dirty, unmade bed of a book and, once you settle in you're in no hurry to get out.”Geoff Dyer, Guardian
“An epic of drenched sensuality and absurdly chewable dialogue, as though Don DeLillo and Joseph Heller had collaborated on a Vietnam War novel”Steven Poole, Books of the Year, New Statesman
“A Catch-22 for our times”Alan Warner, Books of the Year, The Observer
