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Tree of Smoke
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 23 hrs and 5 mins
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Publisher's summary
Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me.
This is the story of Skip Sands—spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong—and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature.
Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson's first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date.
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- Audie Award Winner, Literary Fiction, 2008
“Patton is outstanding...[his] performance is quiet, powerful, and gut-wrenching....This is MUST listening.” —AudioFile Magazine
“This is the very talented Will Paton's greatest performance as a reader so far. His range of voices and evocation of character--the hopeful, the innocent, the cynical, the despairing and the mad--bring the tale to even more terrible and blistered life than the book itself, making it a 23-hour excursion into mesmerizing darkness.” —The Washington Post
“Will Patton's reading of \"Tree of Smoke\" is superb...The experience overall is one of hallucinatory horror, laugh-out-loud outrage, of sadness at the tremendous waste of lives, money and the national pride that went into Vietnam and did not return.” —Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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Khorramshahr, Iran, May 1982 - It was the bloodiest battle of one of the most brutal wars of the twentieth century, and Najah, a 29-year-old wounded Iraqi conscript, was face to face with a 13-year-old Iranian child soldier who was ordered to kill him. Instead, the boy committed an astonishing act of mercy. It was an act that decades later would save his own life.
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- By jennie on 04-10-24
By: Zahed Haftlang, and others
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Our Story Begins
- New and Selected Stories
- By: Tobias Wolff
- Narrated by: Anthony Heald
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Wolff here returns with fresh revelations - about biding one's time, or experiencing first love, or burying one's mother - that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary. A retired Marine enrolls in college while her son trains for Iraq. A lawyer takes a difficult deposition. An American in Rome indulges the Gypsy who's picked his pocket.
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Great
- By chris on 04-11-08
By: Tobias Wolff
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The Darling
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Mary Beth Hurt
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Darling is Hannah Musgrave's story, told emotionally and convincingly years later by Hannah herself. A political radical and member of the Weather Underground, Hannah has fled America to West Africa, where she and her Liberian husband become friends and colleagues of Charles Taylor, the notorious warlord and now ex-president of Liberia. When Taylor leaves for the United States in an effort to escape embezzlement charges, he's immediately placed in prison.
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Complex and compelling
- By Ellen H. Anderson on 02-05-05
By: Russell Banks
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The Confessions of Al Capone
- By: Loren D. Estleman
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 19 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1944 Al Capone, the most notorious Mob boss in history, has already been released from prison. Though Capone is no longer the enormously powerful force who dominated Chicago’s underworld for years, he is still a thorn in the side of J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI chief knows that if he can somehow manage to get Capone to reveal details of crimes he and his Outfit committed, the Bureau has a good chance of nailing key members who now are active in the wartime black market.
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Interesting story
- By Michael on 02-07-17
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Continental Drift
- By: Russell Banks
- Narrated by: Zach Villa
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Now available for the first time in audiobook format, a powerful literary classic from one of contemporary fiction's most acclaimed and important writers. Russell Banks' Continental Drift is a masterful novel of hope lost and gained and a gripping, indelible story of fragile lives uprooted and transformed by injustice, disappointment, and the seductions and realities of the American dream.
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Give up and die
- By AI on 12-09-21
By: Russell Banks
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Hawke: Three Black Ops
- Alex Hawke Series
- By: Ted Bell
- Narrated by: John Shea
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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This set includes Crash Dive, What Comes Around, and White Death, three Alex Hawke novellas never available before on audio. In Crash Dive, Alex Hawke is on a highly covert mission to enter another nation’s airspace undetected and find a way to avert a global war. In What Comes Around, two CIA officers are found dead. Hawke discovers that the victims are connected through one man: Spider Payne, a rogue intelligence officer. In White Death, M16 suspects a bizarre conspiracy when two bankers are found dead, and vast sums are plundered from the Queen of England’s accounts.
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Scam
- By Anonymous User on 10-10-18
By: Ted Bell
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Koko
- Blue Rose Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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KOKO. Only four men knew what it meant. Now they must stop it. They are Vietnam vets — a doctor, a lawyer, a working stiff, and a writer. Very different from each other, they are nonetheless linked by a shared history and a single shattering secret. Now, they have been reunited and are about to embark on a quest that will take them from Washington, D.C., to the graveyards and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York.
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7 hours in and I am done
- By bionichands on 01-26-12
By: Peter Straub
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The Last King of Scotland
- By: Giles Foden
- Narrated by: Mirron E. Willis
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Shortly after his arrival in Uganda, Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan is called to the scene of a bizarre accident: Idi Amin, careening down a dirt road in his Maserati, has hit a cow. When Garrigan tends to Amin, the dictator, obsessed with all things Scottish, appoints him as his personal physician. So begins a fateful dalliance with the African leader whose Emperor Jones-style autocracy would transform into a reign of terror.
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Worst Production Ever
- By James on 01-24-07
By: Giles Foden
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Oil on Water
- By: Helon Habila
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In the oil-rich and environmentally devastated Nigerian Delta, a British oil executive's wife has been kidnapped. Two journalists - a young upstart, Rufus, and a once-great, now disillusioned veteran, Zaq - are sent to find her. In a story rich with atmosphere and taut with suspense, Oil on Water explores the conflict between idealism and cynical disillusionment in a journey full of danger and unintended consequences.
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Entertaining and Timely
- By Lynn on 07-16-11
By: Helon Habila
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The Yiddish Policemen's Union
- A Novel
- By: Michael Chabon
- Narrated by: Peter Riegert
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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For 60 years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the federal district of Sitka, a temporary safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the district is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.
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Didn't finish...
- By Ann E O'Connor on 10-16-17
By: Michael Chabon
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Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
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Some books are better read.
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Somewhat Disappointed
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Bolaño Poetic Gyre
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Hurricane Season
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The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse - by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals - propels the whole village into an investigation of how and why this murder occurred. Rumors and suspicions spread. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality, Melchor extracts some tiny shred of humanity from these characters that most would write off as utterly irredeemable, forming a lasting portrait of a damned Mexican village.
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Wow
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The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
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Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers, a storyteller celebrated for her emotional acuity, her formal inventiveness, and her ability to capture the mind in overdrive. She has been called "an American virtuoso of the short story form" ( Salon.com ) and "one of the quiet giants... of American fiction" ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ). This volume contains all her stories to date, from the acclaimed "Break It Down" (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee "Varieties of Disturbance".
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Fascinating, quirky short stories
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The Laughing Monsters
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Roland Nair calls himself Scandinavian but travels on a U.S. passport. After ten years' absence, he returns to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to reunite with his friend Michael Adriko. They once made a lot of money here during the country's civil war, and, curious to see whether good luck will strike twice in the same place, Nair has allowed himself to be drawn back to a region he considers hopeless.
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Good
- By Amazon Customer on 02-08-15
By: Denis Johnson
What listeners say about Tree of Smoke
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Elanjelian
- 01-02-10
Overrated
I enjoyed the book immensely for the most part. The Vietnam era war story was full of suspense, and was so well narrated by Will Paton that I was completely hooked to it. And then ... and then, the story turned to Malaysia ... and everything fell apart; because the author's ignorance and prejudice suddenly began to show all too conspicuously. Totally anticlimactic. In the whole, I was disappointed.
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- Mark G. Garcia
- 12-12-22
Tree of Smoke
This book focuses on the exploits, folly and often ridiculousness of the war in Vietnam, told through the eyes of soldiers, civilians, and people who inhabit the spaces in-between, both on the front and at home.
Sure there are plenty of reused tropes here- the whole “the bureaucracy won’t let us win,” and the enigmatic god soldier, a la Kurtz from Apocalypse Now, or even the cipher American, there for one thing but getting in to deep like the Quiet American.
But despite all that this book is great. What sets it apart for me is the dialogue. At times it is stunning, from the almost monosyllabic conversations between military men, the philosophical thoughts of priests and common folk, and the heartfelt discussions between family and soldiers.
Will Patton is a fabulous reader of the text, and his characters all have depth and life.
Great book.
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- William R. Earnest
- 05-18-23
The best Vietnam war fiction I have ever read
This is an incredible book. It feels very real and very realistic with interesting characters and a great storyline. I didn’t feel but it drifted so I’m in the last 25% or so, but still find it to be highly memorable.
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- Jonah Houston
- 07-28-24
Brilliant writing
Flashes of incandescence in a complex story woven together brilliantly. My first book by Johnson but definitely not my last.
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Overall
- Stageplay
- 02-09-08
Terrific Novel
There are not that many books that leave one with a lasting impression such that they will never forget the book. For me, such books as Les Miserable, Ben Hur, Moby Dick, et al, fit this category. So, too, does Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson. I can see where some might find this book a waste of time, for there are many who have not experienced such things as are described in this book and find it implausible, disjointed, or otherwise unacceptable that such things be written. As for me, this is a novel of epic proportion that wrenches the feel of a tragic time from its pages indelibly into the mind of the reader, never to be forgotten. This book is more than a "read". It is an experience, dreamlike, transcendent, and powerful. It is for those who would slake their curiosity. It takes a certain temerity to read a book such as this, an adventure for the imagination that conjures the nightmare of reality. I am a Vietnam era veteran, and I cannot recommend a book in a stronger fashion than this. Read it, feel it, and learn from it.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Dan D.
- 05-22-08
Too depressing
The author seems to have taken some of the drugs that his characters took. Although this is interesting from a historical perspective, the narrative is disjointed and too hard to follow.
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1 person found this helpful
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Story
- G. Benett
- 02-13-20
Psyops and karma
In Vietnam the American military believed it was saving the world from the "absolute evil" of communism (as a central character here puts it, misinterpreting Hannah Arendt). Well, communism is gone, and evil is in pretty good shape. A Buddhist proverb says that holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. Denis Johnson's eloquent epic sheds light on how the violence and racism with which America waged war in southeast Asia - as the French had for ten years prior - cycled back to damage a generation of men & women. Arguably we are still suffering from the ideological self-assurance that transforms politics into evil. It's a good read in these dark times, masterfully read here by film and stage actor Will Patton.
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- Jason
- 04-09-22
Truly Majestic Audiobook
What an experience! Perfect Narrator & perfect novel!
If you like Jonathan Franzen, this very much feels similar to his work, with its heart, humor and moralistic visions of horrible actions, yet I couldnt stop listening! What a journey! Felt like an epic poem & narrator Will Patton absolutely perfect for it! I'm So Happy I finally took the Trip! BREAK ON THRU!
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- ian douglas
- 07-01-24
Fantastic narration of excellent novel
The narrator matches the tone and pace of the text well, and his use of distinct (but not over-the-top) voices for different characters/sections makes this rather long novel flow smoothly and beautifully.
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- Mark
- 03-18-08
A great read that is worth the effort
This book got a great review in the NY Times and readily deserved it. I was surprised to see so many negative reviews on Audible and as a result waited to download it. I am glad that I finally did. In fact I liked it so much that I listened to it twice (back to back) a feat that I only performed once before (David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas).
In defense of the previous reviewers this book presents some challenges to the reader: it has a lot of characters (many of whom adopt nicknames); it jumps around in sequence somewhat; and it lives up to its name (much is implied rather than fully stated).
In defense of the book it is beautifully written, gives lots to reflect on and is a fascinating story to boot. Although it is set in part in Vietnam during the war it is not about the war. It is a spiritual journey through eyes of some pretty interesting characters set against the backdrop of the war. It is hard to describe why it works but it does.
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19 people found this helpful