There's something very American about the idea that a fiction writer should have to write a "big novel" to secure a place in the literary pantheon. Denis Johnson didn't need to write Tree of Smoke; he'd long since enshrined himself — with a story collection, no less. But DeLillo didn't need to write Underworld on that account, either, and we're glad he did, so God bless America. America is taking notice, too. Regardless of how the National Book Awards turn out in November, this book, with its singular take on the familiar territory of the Vietnam War, is sure to bring the cult of Johnson — heretofore the province primarily of writing classes and lit-hipsters — to the mainstream.

A long novel, briefly: It opens in 1963, before most of America knew how deeply involved its government, via the CIA, was in Vietnam. Lengthy chapters cover each year until 1970, with a coda in 1983, by which time most of the primary characters are dead or damaged beyond repair. Those characters include Skip Sands, a fervent anti-Communist and CIA field operative; his uncle, "the Colonel," a Kurtz figure who takes psyops warfare into his own hands; the Colonel's maniacal protégé Sgt. Storm; a Vietnamese double-agent named Trung and his old friend Hao, who may or may not have betrayed him in the end; a Canadian aid worker, Kathy, who never gets over Skip; and the sad, sad Houston brothers, James and Bill (the protagonist of Angels , Johnson's first novel).

Despite its length, Tree of Smoke can still feel like a Johnson short story as tension builds in a slow burn; there's an equanimous narrator for whom the horrific is mundane — although in this book, Johnson's prose tends to be a bit more expansive. Months go by between scenes, unaccounted for; as far as the reader is concerned, Johnson supplies information on a strictly need-to-know basis. That's a familiar modus operandi for the author, and for a book about the lunatic fringe of the CIA, it couldn't be more appropriate.

-Chris Parris-Lamb