Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Denis Johnson
My review
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I struggled with this review for a long time. I kept going back and forth over whether I just didn’t care for it, or whether I really was torn up about the characters’ fates. Ultimately, I found myself in the latter category, but it took a while, which prevents me from all-out praise for the book.
When it started out, I was somehow reminded of Slaughterhouse Five, but really that was only the first 100 pages or so. After that, it became clear that this novel deserves no comparisons to other works, it stands on its own. There will be those who quibble over the prose, but when I truly sat down to read this book, not just force myself through the pages so that it got back to the library on time, I was truly immersed in the characters’ worlds. It’s just too bad it wasn’t a couple hundred pages shorter.
Next up is Blasphemy by Douglas Preston.
Tree of Smoke
The D's 