For those who know Denis Johnson from his superb short stories (Jesus’ Son), it comes as a surprise that he has undertaken such a mammoth of a subject as Vietnam, but this books turns out to be a larger version of what he does best : snapshots of people’s lives as they pass through strange, terrifying and sublime experiences.
Tree of Smoke examines the self-destructive impulses in human nature that push us toward war and, for those who live through it, the way we cope or not with our return home.
An excellent read
For those who know Denis Johnson from his superb short stories (Jesus’ Son), it comes as a surprise that he has undertaken such a mammoth of a subject as Vietnam, but this books turns out to be a larger version of what he does best : snapshots of people’s lives as they pass through strange, terrifying and sublime experiences.
Tree of Smoke examines the self-destructive impulses in human nature that push us toward war and, for those who live through it, the way we cope or not with our return home.