Tree of Smoke: The Lords of Fear & Discord 
 'Tree of Smoke' -- the title could be a metaphor for Johnson's accomplishment with this novel; if the 'smoke' is the stylistic mastery of prose he's always possessed, the 'tree' would be the solid, organic story at the novels core. He's always had more substance behind his narrative than some of the other great American stylists, like Don Delillo; but ToS is far more rich in character and plot than anything he's written before. The naysayers can go fuck themselves :-). This novel deserved the National Book Award more than any novel written in the past decade. 
 Denis Johnson has given convincing evidence of his utter mastery of prose with 'Jesus Son', his collection of inter-connected stories about a young man drifting across the American landscape, ravaged by various addictions and accumulating tragedies. 'Already Dead', 'Angels', 'Resuscitation of a Hanged Man', 'The Stars At Noon'... Every one of these titles feature writing that is effortlessly poetic, but never pretentious or arrogant -- the trap that several great writers have been unable to avoid. The novels of Don Delillo, for example (since I've already started picking on him), are marred by his swaggering, 'I'm a fucking genius super-writer' attitude. 
 Denis Johnson, looking smug about the National Book Award ;-). "I'm a literary icon. I only hang out in front of buildings that match my shirt." I should take a star for that shit: 
 Even the greatest writing needs a plot that pulls the reader along, a framework of characters and motivations to build the story up. While Don Delillo remains one of the English languages' foremost stylists, along with Michael Ondaatje, Charles Frazier, Cormac McCarthy and Ron Hansen, Johnson is both a natural stylist and a natural storyteller. He is a rare breed of writer, and only McCarthy displays those same preternatural gifts. 
 In Tree of Smoke, Johnson has created an masterpiece of historical fiction, a brilliant and complex tale of the CIA's involvement in Southeast Asia and Vietnam in the years leading up to the war. It follows Bobby 'Skip' Sands, fresh out of an intensive training regime that taught him the language and cultural understanding he would need on his vague assignment. He finds it difficult to make sense of his work for 'The Colonel' -- also his uncle, a charismatic and gregarious man that Sands has little in common with. 
 The Colonel has a great deal of blood on his hands, and some radical ideas about using psychological warfare to demoralize the enemy. His patriotism is like a weight that is crushing his soul; he has a maudlin sentimentality when he starts drinking, but as gets drunker his rambling takes on an ugly, nihilistic tone. 
 As Skip begins to worry about the Tree of Smoke -- a massive collection of cards containing names, places, dates, religious beliefs, superstitions, indigenous flora and fauna, local foods, tribal medicines, political leanings, etc, which he is tasked with categorizing and cross-referencing into a pre-digital intelligence database -- he is warned by a peer to distance himself from his uncle, due to some mysterious proposal that has his superiors questioning his mental fitness. 
 Oooo, a fancy diagram! No I have not given you any reason to care about the details it contains. But... it's topical and it looks all serious and shit. Look out! He's got diagrams and he's prepared to use them! 
 Sands feels himself more isolated than ever, but finds some solace in a sad affair with a Canadian relief worker whose husband disappeared in the jungle, likely the victim of any one of the many human predators who hunt there. It also tells the story from another side, that of the Houston brothers, who left the desolate future they saw for themselves in exchange for a senseless nightmare. Their experiences are woven into the larger tale initially as anecdotal digressions, as one brother leaves his small, impoverished hometown and makes glancing contact with the Colonel and Sands. Then the younger brother finds his way to the hell that is simmering in Southeast Asia, becoming more directly entangled in the madness that has already taken root in the heart of the CIA and PsyOps. 
 Johnson found in ToS the story that will establish him as one of the great English-language writers. Regardless what's said about it on Goodreads, where it currently has 3.57 stars out of five (thanks, idiots -- I jk :-D), 'Tree of Smoke' will endure. If you're looking for a 'fun read', just keep on walking. This isn't entertainment, this is big-L soul-scorching Literature. It's compelling, and it's intellectually nourishing, a story that will tattoo itself on your bones and neurons. 
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