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Tree of Smoke
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 23 hrs and 5 mins
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Tree of Smoke
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Publisher's Summary
Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me.
This is the story of Skip Sands—spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong—and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature.
Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson's first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date.
What the critics say
- Audie Award Winner, Literary Fiction, 2008
“Patton is outstanding...[his] performance is quiet, powerful, and gut-wrenching....This is MUST listening.” —AudioFile Magazine
“This is the very talented Will Paton's greatest performance as a reader so far. His range of voices and evocation of character--the hopeful, the innocent, the cynical, the despairing and the mad--bring the tale to even more terrible and blistered life than the book itself, making it a 23-hour excursion into mesmerizing darkness.” —The Washington Post
“Will Patton's reading of \"Tree of Smoke\" is superb...The experience overall is one of hallucinatory horror, laugh-out-loud outrage, of sadness at the tremendous waste of lives, money and the national pride that went into Vietnam and did not return.” —Sarasota Herald-Tribune