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There’s a surprising amount of historical fiction on this month’s bestseller lists: THE WORLD WITHOUT END, by Ken Follett; THE CHASE, by Clive Cussler; RHETT BUTLER’S PEOPLE, by Donald McCaig; GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD, by Michael Chabon; MISTER B. GONE, by Clive Cussler; and THE UNCOMMON READER, by Alan Bennett to name a few. I’m also surprised that a GONE WITH THE WIND spin-off has made it to the bestseller lists, as this is, after all, fan fiction. But the author of JACOB’S LADDER and THE BAMBOO CANNON has managed to champion the project and make it sell more than a reunion novel between Scully and Mulder probably would.
While there’s also the usual collection of detective fiction populating the lists—DOUBLE CROSS, by James Patterson; STONE COLD, by David Baldacci; CREATION IN DEATH, by J.D. Robb—there’s also a fair amount of respectable fiction. Nicholas Sparks, Khaled Hosseini, and Alice Sebold are still going strong as they were on November’s bestseller lists. Booksense is also rife with detective fiction, which is becoming a common pattern for a bestseller list reserved for independent bookstores. While A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS is still in first place, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the indies and the mainstream Barnes and Nobles of New York and L.A. This might symbolize a growing struggle for literary fiction—if the hippies aren’t reading it, who is? TREE OF SMOKE, by Denis Johnson is number fifteen on the Booksense Bestseller List and has been acclaimed as an epic modern classic. The cover is pretty nice too, showing up on Joseph Sullivan’s Book Design Review in his list of Favorite Covers of 2007. Check out Jim Lewis’ New York Times review of TREE OF SMOKE below: Good morning and please listen to me: Denis Johnson is a true American artist, and “Tree of Smoke” is a tremendous book, a strange entertainment, very long but very fast, a great whirly ride that starts out sad and gets sadder and sadder, loops unpredictably out and around, and then lurches down so suddenly at the very end that it will make your stomach flop. It comes with the armor and accoutrements of a Major Novel: big historical theme (Vietnam), semi-mythical cultural institution (military intelligence), long time span (1963-70, with a coda set in 1983) and unreasonable length (614 pages), all of which would be off-putting if this were not, in fact, a major novel, and if Johnson’s last big book hadn’t been the small collection of eccentric and addictive short stories called “Jesus’ Son” (1992). “Tree of Smoke” is a soulful book, even a numinous one (it’s dedicated “Again for H.P.” and I’ll bet you a bundle that stands for “higher power”), and it ought to secure Johnson’s status as a revelator for this still new century — a prediction I voice confidently but reluctantly, and with a little disappointment and dismay. Reluctantly, because Johnson has always been an elusive figure, one of the last of the marginal masters. He’s not a recluse, but he’s not out humping his ego, either: I’ve never read an interview with him (though I haven’t looked very hard), or seen a picture of him that wasn’t on one of his book jackets. More important, it has often seemed as if the books themselves — there have been six novels, a book of short stories and one of plays, three volumes of poetry and a collection of journalism — have bloomed spontaneously from the secret fissures that crisscross Americana: jail cells, bad neighborhoods, bus stations, cheap frame houses in the fields beyond the last streetlight. They’re full of deprived souls in monstrous situations, hapless pilgrims on their way to their next disaster. But unlike most books about the dispossessed, they’re original (how strange it feels to use that word these days, but it fits), and what’s more, deliriously beautiful — ravishing, painful; as desolate as Dostoyevsky, as passionate and terrifying as Edgar Allan Poe. Johnson’s standing, then, is ideal for a writer today: ample respect from his colleagues and peers, a bit of support from institutions and a large following that has nonetheless left him vaguely outside of things. “Tree of Smoke” is a massive thing and something like a masterpiece; it’s the product of an extraordinary writer in full stride. But I can’t help hoping that it leaves his status unchanged. We don’t need any more novelist-performers or novelist-pundits or novelist-narcissists, but we very badly need more novelists who can write this well. As for this particular novel, it’s typically counterintuitive. For one thing, it’s about the Vietnam War, and who would have thought we needed another book about that fiasco? For another, it co-stars a character named Bill Houston, who carried Johnson’s first novel, “Angels” (1983), and met a bad end. Reading about his prehistory in the Navy is a disturbing experience for anyone who’s read the earlier book, though it’ll mean nothing in particular to those who haven’t. Stranger still, “Tree of Smoke” doesn’t feel like a Denis Johnson novel, not at first, anyway. He has a fondness for the oracular mode, and he often pitches his rhetoric in a register unavailable to most contemporary writers: Isaiah among the lumpenproletariat. It’s his natural form of address, but it can sometimes be exhausting. An earlier novel, “Already Dead” (1997), started out wild and ended, 435 pages later, unhinged. “Tree of Smoke” is cannier: it begins like a very good novel by someone else, and by the time you realize how demanding it has become, it’s too late. Sentences like this start flashing past: “She had nothing in this world but her two hands and her crazy love for Jesus, who seemed, for his part, never to have heard of her.” What a thing to say, but the book is moving on. Two drunken soldiers, one of them an amputee, have a long, inane conversation, during which the disabled one announces, “My invisible foot hurts.” Later, the other soldier weeps “like a barking dog.” 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. But I haven’t told you what the thing is about yet. It’s mostly about a man named Skip Sands, a novice in the C.I.A, who begins the book as a young man in 1965, and makes it almost to the end, though by then it’s 1983 and he’s ancient; and his uncle, a Kurtz-like character who starts a little operation of his own, and then dies so ridiculously that no one can believe he’s actually dead; and the Houston brothers, Bill and James, who serve their country and then wander, angry and free, back to Nothing-to-Do, Arizona; and two Vietnamese military men, one from the South and one from the North, who flip this way and that; and another intelligence officer named Storm, who carries the book like the last man in a relay race, delivering it at the finish to a Canadian woman named Kathy, a Seventh-Day Adventist and aid worker, who has encompassed the whole story, who winds up bearing much of the book’s considerable grief, and who gets, as she deserves, its final pages to mourn. Many of the themes from Johnson’s earlier books are recapitulated here, large and small: the American unleashed on the world and the world rendered opaque to Americans; tenderness as unexpected swerve and thuggishness as uninflected animus; death as the palm at the end of the mind. He has odd stylistic quirks — a superstition, for example, about proper names. (Bill Houston, in “Angels,” is rarely called anything but Bill Houston, though here he occasionally goes by just plain Bill; the narrator of “Jesus’ Son” is anonymous but for a raunchy nickname; a figure in his novel “Fiskadoro” is named “________”; and “Tree of Smoke” includes a minor character who refuses to be called anything but Black Man.) Yes, there are a few things I wish Johnson had done differently. He puts more hardware on display here (guns, airplanes, intelligence equipage) than I needed to see, and more rock ’n’ roll military dialogue than I needed to hear. And he can occasionally overindulge in significance: a longish journey, at the end of “Tree of Smoke,” left me with the uneasy sense that he can’t tell the difference between Joseph Conrad, who was a genius, and Joseph Campbell, who was not. So it’s not a perfect book; but then, a perfect book would be perfectly safe, and I don’t have time for that. I spent a long time reading “Tree of Smoke,” and as I neared the end I found myself wishing it were longer. 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. Epiphanies occur in almost every book, but a credible apocalypse is much harder to find. And a little redemption in the last chapter is so common that it’s barely noticeable; but how many books can really convey what it means to be lost, let alone, as this one does, what it might mean to be found?
New York Times Hardcover Fiction 1 DOUBLE CROSS, by James Patterson. (Little, Brown, $27.99.) Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, a police detective, confront a Washington killer who boasts of his killings on his own Web site, as well as an old adversary who has escaped from prison. 2 THE CHOICE, by Nicholas Sparks. (Grand Central, $24.99.) How a North Carolina man’s choices play out in his life; from the author of ““At First Sight.” 3 PLAYING FOR PIZZA, by John Grisham. (Doubleday, $21.95.) An American third-string quarterback joins the Italian National Football League’s Parma Panthers. 4 STONE COLD, by David Baldacci. (Grand Central, $26.99.) Members of Washington’s Camel Club are being murdered to prevent them from uncovering government secrets. 5 CONFESSOR, by Terry Goodkind. (Tor/Tom Doherty, $29.95.) The 11th and final novel of the “Sword of Truth” fantasy series. 6 A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS, by Khaled Hosseini. (Riverhead, $25.95.) A friendship between two women in Afghanistan against the backdrop of 30 years of war. 7 WORLD WITHOUT END, by Ken Follett. (Dutton, $35.) Love and intrigue in Kingsbridge, the medieval English cathedral town at the center of Follett’s “Pillars of the Earth.” 8 HOME TO HOLLY SPRINGS, by Jan Karon. (Viking, $26.95.) The Mitford character Father Tim returns to his native town to reconnect with family and friends. 9 THE CHASE, by Clive Cussler. (Putnam, $26.95.) In the early 20th century, a detective tracks a killer all over the West. 10 BOOK OF THE DEAD, by Patricia Cornwell. (Putnam, $26.95.) The forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta opens a private practice in Charleston, S.C. 11 PROTECT AND DEFEND, by Vince Flynn. (Atria, $26.95.) An American counterterrorism operative has to avert catastrophe in nuclear Iran. 12 RHETT BUTLER’S PEOPLE, by Donald McCaig. (St. Martin’s, $27.95.) An authorized sequel to “Gone With the Wind” updates the character of Rhett Butler for the modern reader. 13 AMAZING GRACE, by Danielle Steel. (Delacorte, $27.) A San Francisco earthquake brings four strangers together. 14 CREATION IN DEATH, by J. D. Robb. (Putnam, $25.95.) Lt. Eve Dallas pursues the Groom, a killer who disappeared nine years earlier but has now returned; by Nora Roberts, writing pseudonymously. 15 THE ALMOST MOON, by Alice Sebold. (Little, Brown, $24.99.) A woman murders her mother; from the author of “The Lovely Bones.”
LA Times Hardcover Fiction 1. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead: $25.95) Two Afghan women struggle to survive jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny. 2. Stone Cold by David Baldacci (Grand Central: $26.99) Adventurers try to outmaneuver a swindled casino owner and a mysterious killer. 3. The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold (Little, Brown: $24.99) A depressed divorcée kills her mother, then tries to understand what drove her to it. 4. Double Cross by James Patterson (Little, Brown: $27.99) Alex Cross is called back to action when a flurry of murders causes terror in Washington, D.C. 5. Confessor by Terry Goodkind (Tor Books: $29.95) In this final chapter of the "Chainfire Triology," Richard Rahl must find his wife and save the world. 6. Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon (Del Rey: $21.95) An unlikely pair of travelers ply their skills along the Silk Road in the 10th century. 7. The Chase by Clive Cussler (Putnam: $26.95) A detective pursues a bank robber across the West, landing in San Francisco for the 1906 earthquake. 8. World Without End by Ken Follett (Dutton: $35) Four children who witness a murder jockey for power and position as adults in 14th century England. 9. Protect and Defend by Vince Flynn (Atria: $26.95) When the CIA director is kidnapped in Iraq, counter-terrorism agent Mitch Rapp must rescue her. 10. Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell (Putnam: $26.95) Forensics expert Kay Scarpetta goes to Rome to investigate a tennis champ's murder. 11. Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker (HarperCollins: $24.95) A 13th century demon child's memoir about his battle with an angel in disguise. 12. Run by Ann Patchett (Harper: $25.95) A widower faces complications when one of his children is shadowed by the birth mother. 13. Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig (St. Martin's: $27.95) "Gone With the Wind" told from lovable rake Rhett Butler's point of view. 14. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta (St. Martin's: $24.95) A church group forces abstinence-only sex education on a high school. 15. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $15) Queen Elizabeth II, in search of her corgis, meets an avid reader and becomes one. Booksense Hardcover Fiction 1. A Thousand Splendid Suns
By Hosseini, Khaled
Splendid characters and plot indeed, once again set in Afghanistan, by the author of the wondrous The Kite Runner. A June Book Sense Pick. 2. World Without End
By Follett, Ken
Follett brings us back to Kingsbridge, the setting of his bestselling (and Oprah Pick) Pillars of the Earth. 3. Double Cross
By Patterson, James
A new escapist thriller featuring Alex Cross. 4. Stone Cold
By Baldacci, David
A slick thriller that hinges on a corrupt government. 5. Playing for Pizza
By Grisham, John
An American footballer takes his game to Italy. 6. Home to Holly Springs
By Karon, Jan
A new series featuring Episcopal priest Father Tim. 7. Bridge of Sighs
By Russo, Richard
Unforgettable portrait of vanishing small-town America, from its unofficial poet laureate. A Book Sense Pick. 8. The Almost Moon
By Sebold, Alice
The latest novel from the author of The Lovely Bones is an October Book Sense Pick. 9. Rhett Butler's People
By McCaig, Donald
Gone With the Wind from Rhett's perspective. 10. Gentlemen of the Road
By Chabon, Michael
An historical fable from Pulitzer Prize-winning Chabon features wild, red-haired Jews on the western shore of the Caspian Sea. A Book Sense Notable. 11. Run
By Patchett, Ann
An intimate domestic drama that touches on the big themes of our day, from the author of Bel Canto. A Book Sense Pick. 12. Confessor
By Goodkind, Terry
Part three of the Chainfire Trilogy. 13. Book of the Dead
By Cornwell, Patricia
Forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta and her team tackle murder #15. 14. The Chase
By Cussler, Clive
An historical thriller set in the early 20th-century West. A Book Sense Notable title. 15. Tree of Smoke
By Johnson, Denis
Winner of the National Book Award for fiction; a potential classic about the Vietnam War. 34. The Christmas Pearl
By Frank, Dorothea Benton
A bad-tempered family turns into a warm one in this Christmas fable. A Book Sense Notable title.
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