A fire truck rolls by the window, reminding us that the membrane is thin between coffee in your favorite mug and a chair for reading, and chaos. No matter who you are they will rush in and try to save you.
We have a CIA officer, two young soldiers, a priest. In the Philippines. I am reading Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson, the author of Train Dreams. How did I miss this book when it came out in 2007, when it won the National Book Award? I was covering the campaign I guess. I’m only 93 pages in but the novel is working on me. I’m not fully sure how.
I’m also not sure what’s going on. That’s part of the art of the novel, I think. To make you feel confused. That’s brave. I’m a writer who wants to make sure the reader has stepped on every cobblestone and is wearing the appropriate shoes in order to be on the pathway to the pleasing conclusion of the story or argument. (The Aristocrats!) No confusion allowed. But that’s limiting. It’s brave to resist that urge for certainty. To make uncertainty a character in the novel, as I suspect it will be in Tree of Smoke. To restrain, leave things out. To risk some reader misunderstanding. Maybe you don’t want your acclaim to be too universal, or that’s a sign that you haven’t risked enough to create something lasting and that changes a reader from the inside. You want confused Goodreads reviews!
