PositiveThe New York Times Sunday Book ReviewDenis Johnson is a true American artist, and Tree of Smoke is a tremendous book, a strange entertainment … Tree of Smoke is a massive thing and something like a masterpiece; it’s the product of an extraordinary writer in full stride … The lines roll like billiard balls with weird English on them, they spin and skid, often just after their last comma, and then they plunge into their pockets with a crack … The grief I mentioned above: there are very few writers today who can get that on the page, and our literature is tepid without it.
