Plot
Tree of Smoke is an American novel about the Vietnam War by Denis Johnson. It primarily follows William "Skip" Sands, a newly minted CIA agent operating in Vietnam during the American insurgency. It also follows James Houston, an infantry private, his brother Bill, and a Canadian nurse named Kathy Jones. The novel moves between 1963 and 1970, setting its epilogue in 1983, in the aftermath of the war. The eponymous Tree of Smoke is a vast collection of index cards containing intelligence collected by Skip's uncle, the WWII war hero and CIA operative Colonel Francis Xavier Sands.
William "Skip" Sands is a newly-minted member of the CIA Psy Ops team. He is following in the footsteps of his uncle, Colonel Francis Xavier Sands, a hard-drinking WWII war hero and legendary CIA operative. Colonel Sands assigns Skip the daunting task of copying and cross-referencing a huge set of index cards containing information about people, places, and events. The Colonel believes these cards, which he calls the Tree of Smoke, represent vital intelligence that will help the Americans win the war. Skip soon realizes that the information is outdated and useless, but he continues to work on the task.
Skip is sent by his uncle to Mindanao, Philippines to gather intelligence on a priest suspected of gun running. Though Skip finds no such evidence, the priest is nevertheless assassinated by Dietrich Fest, a German assassin contracted by the CIA. Skip believes this murder to be a grave error, but does not mention the Colonel's involvement in his report. As a reward and per Skip's request, the Colonel has Skip sent to the Foreign Language School in Monterey, California, to learn Vietnamese. He is later reassigned to Vietnam.
Initially, Skip believes that he will become an important part of the war effort; however, he is assigned to a remote village where he has little contact with anyone other than his two house servants. He is living under an alias where he is supposed to be compiling information about local folklore and fairy tales, as the Colonel believes learning about the local culture will help win the war. Meanwhile, reminiscent of another Colonel - Colonel Kurtz - Colonel Sands has commandeered a platoon of army infantrymen at a makeshift base called the Landing Zone (LZ). The Colonel, with his henchman Sergeant Jimmy Storm, use their army platoon to map Vietcong tunnels in an operation known as Labyrinth. However, during the Tet offensive, the Colonel's platoon suffers heavy losses, and the Colonel mercy kills a VC POW who is being tortured by the American soldiers.
The Colonel is stripped of his LZ command, operation Labyrinth is terminated, and he is ordered to return to CIA headquarters - an order which he characteristically ignores. The Colonel, who fancies himself a warrior philosopher, comes under further scrutiny by CIA brass when an incendiary article challenging CIA practices authored by the Colonel is leaked by a subordinate named Voss. It becomes increasing apparent to Skip that the Colonel is becoming unhinged.
More rogue than ever, Colonel Sands devises a plan to use a double agent to get misinformation in the hands of the Vietcong. Working through a South Vietnamese man named Hao, a disillusioned VC soldier and childhood friend of Hao's named Trung Than, who earlier in the novel fails to assassinate the Colonel, agrees to be that double agent. Colonel Sands orders Skip to use his limited knowledge of the Vietnamese language to learn everything he can about Trung. They spend only a short time together before Colonel Sands learns that the operation has been compromised. He accuses Skip of having passed information on to Voss and their superiors at the CIA (though the real mole is Hao, who is angling to get relocated from Vietnam through any means necessary). Meanwhile, Trung is moved to a small hotel where the assassin Fest is sent to kill him. Jimmy Storm, however, learns of plot and kills Fest, allowing Trung to escape.
Colonel Sands dies under mysterious circumstances and his legend continues to grow. Skip learns that the CIA now intends to blame him for all the mistakes and illegal activities performed under the Colonel's orders. Another American operative helps Skip escape and disappear for several years. He begins a new, but troubled life, and, in 1983, is eventually found guilty of running guns in Malaysia. He and all the members of his operation are hanged.
The novel concludes with Jimmy Storm, who believes that the larger-than-life Colonel is still alive, on a quasi-mythological quest throughout Southeast Asia to find the Colonel or the truth of his demise.
While the story of Skip and Colonel Sands provide central narrative, there are several side plots in the novel. Bill and James Houston are half-brothers who are members of the American military during the Vietnam years. They each sporadically send money home to their mother but both wind up spending most of their pay on alcohol and women. Bill returns to the United States earlier than James. He struggles for awhile and spends some time in prison. He seems to be getting his life together by the time James returns to the U.S. Bill sees James going down the same path and is frustrated when James won't listen to reason and winds up in prison.
A nurse named Kathy who is working for a Canadian NGO is widowed at an early age when her husband, a missionary in the Philippines, is killed. She winds up working for an organization that arranges adoptions for Vietnamese orphans. She has a brief affair with Skip and struggles with her faith throughout the novel.
Hao and Kim are a Vietnamese couple. Hao, whose nephew Minh is a helicopter pilot working for Colonel Sands, aligns himself with Colonel Sands in order to win a relocation out of South Vietnam. However, he soon begins feeding information about the double agent Trung to other CIA agents as well. At the close of the novel, the couple leave Vietnam as payment for his information.
