Title:: [[Tree of Smoke]] Authors:: [[Denis Johnson]] Tags:: #fiction Read:: [[2026-01-20]] Instagram :: https://www.instagram.com/p/DTwFLY0joNg/ ## Editions - Edition:: [[Picador]], 2008 - Original Copyright:: 2008 - Pages:: 602 ## Purchase * Bookshop.org:: https://bookshop.org/a/94437/9780312427740 ## Annotations It didn’t feel like I was ever going to finish this. I picked it up just as ICE began a campaign of terror against my neighbors in the Minneapolis-St Paul metro. Doomscrolling too often replaced reading and my attention span, already challenged, was no match.  Tree of Smoke didn’t meet the high expectations I have for Denis Johnson. Yes, there were external factors contributing to this, but there were also aspects of the book itself — its narrative style, the moral ambiguity and community trauma deployed and weaponized in the Vietnam War — that didn’t do me any escapist favors. Its vibes of confusion and disorientation may have been a better match for a different moment.