AJ Logo an ARTSJOURNAL weblog | ArtsJournal Home | AJ Blog Central

« "Our two main weapons are fear, surprise and -- Our THREE main weapons are ..." | Main | Oh, THOSE barbarian hordes »

August 26, 2007

Ssssmokin! A review

book/daddy's brief but excited review of Denis Johnson's new novel, Tree of Smoke, appears in the September issue of Men's Vogue, now on newstands. But it's not available online, so you'll have to read it on the jump.

In 2006, The New York Times included Denis Johnson's superb 1992 story collection, Jesus' Son, in a round-up of the best American fiction of the last 25 years. The book also made him a favorite of those who like reading about stoners and petty thieves.

But Johnson pushed past Bukowski's street angels long ago; now he's deep into Robert Stone territory. His latest, Tree of Smoke, is a brilliant pillar of fire. An epic novel of bungled espionage and small mercies in Vietnam, it is Johnson's 643-page ticket out of cult status. The story cross-cuts between two pairs of characters from 1963 to 1983: The Houston brothers drop out and join the military, while a duo of spooks--the legendary, whiskey-swilling Colonel Sands and his nephew Skip--get neck-deep into delusional derring-do. It doesn't really matter that the Houstons and the Sandses never connect; they parallel each other until a rogue operation that the wily colonel concocts has Skip doing business with a Vietcong double agent.

Betrayals, confusions, hit jobs: We know these jungles from Graham Greene and Apocalypse Now. But Tree of Smoke also steps (too often, perhaps) into writer Antonin Artaud's hallucinogenic travels. This is the novelist as psy ops agent, and the novel as quest for redemption: One operative even boasts to Skip that he works -- much like Johnson's haunting, tragic and humane novel -- on the edge of reality, "Right where it turns into a dream."

Posted by jweeks at August 26, 2007 6:18 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.artsjournal.com/cgi/mt-tb.cgi/1333

COMMENTS



Post a comment



Verification (needed to reduce spam):


Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)

Tell A Friend

Email this entry to:


Your email address:


Message (optional):