Review
Three separate writers use the word
"tremendous" in their reviews of Denis Johnson's
Tree of Smoke, and the word is fitting in all of
its meanings: extraordinarily great, powerful,
immense, and terrifying. Most beloved for his skinny
collection of stories,
Jesus' Son, Johnson's
latest tome piles his trademark themes of
desperation, outsiders, grim fates and lazy quests
for redemption into a 614-page monster of a book
about that monster of a war, Vietnam. Forget the
particulars or historical details. This is a book
about what war does to its denizens, and
specifically, what a senseless, glory-less war does
to their souls.
Johnson's prose is powerful, physical and muscular,
and draws well lit, sharply defined, and...
Beyond the Book
Most of Denis Johnson's fans
discovered him through his 1992
collection of short fiction,
Jesus' Son. His trademark
down & dirty style, paired with
slim, grim stories of
drug-addled 70's drifters drew
critical acclaim, a movie deal,
and a cult following. But before
all that came four novels and at
least two collections of poetry,
the first published in 1969
while Johnson was studying with
Raymond Carver at The University
of Iowa. The pervasive themes of
Denis Johnson's work are all
there in his poems: loneliness,
otherness, and the possibility...
