Tree of Smoke

Tree of Smoke is a novel by Denis Johnson set largely during the Vietnam War. William "Skip" Sands is a young CIA officer who arrives in Southeast Asia in the 1960s to work under his uncle, a legendary and increasingly erratic colonel who is running a secret project in psychological operations against North Vietnam. As the mission grows murkier, Skip's path crosses those of a Canadian aid worker grieving her husband and of two brothers from Arizona who enlist and are changed by the war. Moving across years and continents, the novel follows these characters through deception, faith and moral confusion, showing how the war reshapes everyone it touches. Long and ambitious, it combines a spy story with a meditation on truth and illusion. It won the 2007 National Book Award for Fiction.