Tree of Smoke (2007) is a novel by Denis Johnson. Set primarily during the Vietnam War, the narrative follows a wide cast of characters, including CIA operatives, soldiers, missionaries, nurses, and double agents. At its center is Colonel Francis X. Sands, a larger-than-life figure who oversees covert psychological warfare operations, while his nephew Skip and others are drawn into the moral and physical chaos of the conflict. Tree of Smoke won the 2007 National Book Award for Fiction and seeks to examine The Harmful Effects of Patriarchal Norms During War, The Search for Faith and Meaning in an Arbitrary World, and The Impossibility of Simple Ethical Choices During Armed Conflict.

This guide refers to the 2016 Picador electronic edition of the novel.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide include depictions of gender discrimination, cursing, graphic violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, death, rape, child death, animal death, substance use, addiction, racism, death by suicide, mental illness, and sexual content.

Language Note: The source text uses offensive sexist slurs for women and sex workers. These terms are reproduced in this guide only in quotations.

Plot Summary

When CIA agent William “Skip” Sands is assigned a secret mission in the Philippines during the Vietnam War, he hopes that he can finally follow in the larger-than-life footsteps of his uncle, Colonel Francis Xavier Sands, a World War II hero. The retired colonel is a consultant for the army, working on psychological warfare initiatives from various Southeast Asian countries. However, Skip’s glorious spy mission turns out to be monotonous, consisting of copying the colonel’s notes on espionage onto endless index cards maintained in several filing cabinets. When the colonel visits Skip, Skip lobbies for a transfer to Vietnam, the heart of the action. The colonel agrees, but he wants Skip to first look up a priest named Father Carignan, who is suspected of running a gun racket.

A Canadian nurse and Seventh Day Adventist named Kathy Jones desperately awaits news of her missionary husband Timothy, who has been missing for several weeks. Kathy runs into Skip on his way to Carignan’s church in the interiors, and the two forge an instant connection. When news arrives that Timothy has been killed, Skip comforts a grieving Kathy, and they become intimate. Skip leaves briefly to visit Carignan and finds the priest entirely harmless. However, Carignan is killed during Skip’s visit. Skip suspects the murder involves a mysterious German he knows from Manila; this man is working for the colonel. Realizing that the colonel sent Skip to Carignan to make the priest’s murder seem like an accident, Skip cleans up the scene, but he grows increasingly conflicted about the colonel’s purpose in Southeast Asia and his dubious working methods. Skip returns briefly to Kathy before he is sent to the United States to train for his stint in Vietnam.

Bill and James Houston, brothers from Arizona, enlist in the Navy and the Army, respectively, hoping that the war will give their lives meaning. During their separate tours, both brothers soon get lost in a haze of paid sex, alcohol, and drugs, with Bill being demoted twice due to his antics. James, who is younger, is stationed in Vietnam with the Echo Company, a reconnaissance team run by Lieutenant Screwy Louise and Sergeant Harmon. The company is soon taken over by the colonel, who wants to use their services to map tunnels used by the Vietminh and the Vietcong. As the war progresses, James grows crueler and colder in his outlook.

Meanwhile, Nyugen Hao, a Vietnamese shop owner, comes into the colonel’s orbit through his nephew Minh, a pilot with the Vietnamese army. Hao wants to stay on the colonel’s good side because he hopes that allying with the Americans will help him emigrate to Singapore, where his sick wife Kim may receive better treatment. However, Hao is also torn about the decision, since he is friends with Trung Than, who emigrated north to become a member of the Vietcong (VC).

These various narrative threads begin to converge soon after Skip’s arrival in Vietnam. The colonel reveals that his operation, known as the “Tree of Smoke,” has a three-fold objective: to filter the intelligence going out to the US to affect policy there; to learn the local customs and folklore so they can be used to manipulate the psyche of the enemy; and to plant a double agent in the Vietcong. Hao works on convincing Trung to cross over to their side so he can be the double agent for the colonel. Trung, disillusioned with the VC, passes vital information about plans for a huge offensive on Tet (the Vietnamese New Year) 1968.

Despite Trung’s intelligence, the attacks on South Vietnam cannot be prevented, and they take a heavy toll on US forces and Vietnamese civilians alike. While Jimmy’s company is on patrol, they are bombed, with Sergeant Harmon suffering grave injuries that leave him paralyzed. The colonel’s men manage to catch a VC member and torture him to death in the presence of Skip and the colonel, with James cheering them on. Skip is rattled by the death. He once again encounters Kathy, who is now working with orphanages in Vietnam; the two coincidentally meet when she goes to Saigon to seek funds for her devastated village. Kathy and Skip reunite for a day, and Kathy leaves the next morning.

After the Tet Offensive, the colonel formally inducts Trung as a double agent, stationing him at Skip’s villa so that Skip can get to know him well. By this time, an article the colonel submitted to the journal of the CIA has begun to raise eyebrows in the American establishment. People connected to the colonel are brought in for questioning. When Hao is quizzed about the colonel’s plans to plant his own secret agent in the VC without authorization from the military, Hao fears that he and Kim will be punished for allying with the colonel. Hao switches his allegiance by promising to help the American officials working against the colonel, though he tries to protect Trung as much as he can.

Skip is brought in for questioning as well, but he professes ignorance about the colonel’s work. The colonel nevertheless becomes wary of Skip and disbands the operation, sending Trung to another location. This is the last Skip sees of the colonel, as news of the colonel’s suspicious death arrives soon afterward. Kathy writes to Skip to say that she is ending things with him, as their spiritual goals do not align. Skip burns the colonel’s index files and flees to Cebu City.

Meanwhile, James is thrown out of the army after he and his unit rape and kill a Vietnamese woman. However, the fiction is maintained that he has an honorable discharge. Back in the US, he meets Bill, who was terminated from the Navy a few years ago. Unable to reintegrate into society, James participates in armed robberies; he is caught and sent to prison. By 1983, Hao has emigrated to Malaysia with Kim, Trung has become a local hero, and Skip has been arrested for running an arms racket in Cebu City. Skip is sentenced to death and hanged.

Kathy, who is now back in Minneapolis, receives Skip’s last letter, which was written a few days before his execution. In the letter, he confesses his love for her. Skip also explains that he finally realizes that the army and CIA, both of which he once idealized, are as unethical as any other outfit. After reading the letter, Kathy addresses a conference on Vietnam. Although she lost her Christian faith after witnessing the horrors of the war, she has an epiphany that, despite the bleakness, all will be saved.