All You Direct - Book Reviews

By Denis Johnson

Denis Johnson’s new novel, “Tree of Smoke,” is his first in nearly a decade and, as it turns out, is well worth the wait. It is a novel large in both scope and ambition, chronicling America’s involvement in Vietnam over the course of 20 years. It begins in 1963 on the morning of President Kennedy’s assassination and devotes a section to each of the subsequent seven years. It ends with a coda set in 1983 in which the devastation and influence of that morning 20 years prior seem never to have ended.

The events of the novel unfold through the eyes of a diverse cast of characters. At the center is Skip Sands, whom we meet as a young and idealistic CIA recruit hoping to follow in the footsteps of his uncle Francis “the Colonel” Sands. The Colonel is a World War II vet and was a legend and hero in that war in which heroes existed. However, as quickly becomes evident, the Vietnam War is not in the business of making heroes, but rather in complicating the very ideas of heroism, of “good” and “right” — complications that result in the disillusionment and corruption of Skip, the Colonel and each of the myriad supporting characters who populate the novel.

This is a character-driven novel with a (perhaps too) large ensemble: Among the key players are Kathy, a Canadian nurse and Skip’s sometimes lover, who finds herself obsessed with the devastation and depravity that surround her; James and Bill Houston, brothers from Phoenix enamored with the idea of violence and adventure; and Hao and Trung, two Vietnamese men willing to betray anyone and anything in exchange for a life outside of Vietnam. The cast does not end here — there are countless others rounding out the landscape, wandering in and out of the 600-plus pages, and Johnson treats each of them to his impressive specificity and careful detail. The fact that Johnson does not let any of his characters feel minor (even the minor ones) works against him as the who’s who of the novel becomes overwhelming. Likewise, the stories attached to each of these characters quickly become hard to keep track of; despite a number of clues that the various narrative threads will somehow be woven into a clear and cohesive whole, this moment of clarity is ultimately evasive.

However, all of this confusion eventually becomes recognizable as experientially and emotionally relevant, and in fact parallels the confusion that the characters themselves are confronted with. The numerous stories unravel in a landscape overcome by shifting identities, where there is nobody to trust and where truth has ceased to exist, so that even as the plot evades us, and we find ourselves unsure which thread to follow, we are gaining a deeper understanding of the characters’ experiences and being pulled deeper into their world.

It is a world we cannot help but be enchanted and overwhelmed by; a beautiful and devastating world where the narrative of war and the binaries on which it relies (good vs. evil, right vs. wrong) are no longer useful or relevant. The absence of such binaries works strongly in the novel’s favor, making it that much more compelling and complicated, and disallowing a narrow or allegorical reading. While parallels to America’s current involvement in Iraq will inevitably be read into it, Johnson thankfully makes no apparent attempt to force them on his reader. There are no cheap shots here; he stays unflinchingly faithful to the world he has created and leaves his readers to draw their own lines. Johnson also refrains from passing judgment on his subject matter and does not provide any semblance of a moral compass. Instead, he cracks open the themes of war and violence and reveals their complexities; unveiling the beauty within devastation, and exposing the moments when horror becomes horribly funny. Finding this balance is a difficult task, but reading Johnson’s work you would never know it. His command of language is simultaneously masterful and effortless, his observations are consistently and overwhelmingly honest, and he has an uncanny ability to infuse even the most horrific moments with an overwhelming sense of humanity, which is appropriate; humanity is the true subject of this book. It uses the Vietnam War only as a catalyst and subsequently a backdrop for an interrogation of the complexities of human emotion and motivation.

It is Johnson’s overwhelming skill at understanding and illustrating these intricacies that make “Tree of Smoke” such a compelling and poignant read and propel it far beyond its chosen landscape into a world of universal relevance.