About the Author

Tim O’Brien was born in Minnesota and served as a foot soldier in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970, and after graduate studies at Harvard worked as a reporter for the Washington Post. When ‘If I Die in a Combat Zone’ was published in 1973, it established him as one of the leading American writers of his generation, a status that was confirmed when ‘Going After Cacciato’ won the National Book Award for fiction.

Reviews

‘One of the best war books of this century, an unflinching attempt to illuminate both its obscene physical brutality and the terrible mental overload’ Guardian ‘A thrilling and beautiful distillation of everything that has been thought, felt, or said about the Vietnam War and its long afterburn. A heartbreaking and healing masterpiece; time will make it a classic’ Michael Herr, author of Dispatches ‘Essential…O’Brien captures the war’s pulsating rhythms and nerve-racking dangers…a stunning performance. The overall effect of these original tales is devastating’ New York Times

Weapons and good-luck charms carried by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam here represent survival, lost innocence and the war's interminable legacy. ``O'Brien's meditations--on war and memory, on darkness and light--suffuse the entire work with a kind of poetic form, making for a highly original, fully realized novel,'' said PW. 60,000 first printing. (Apr.)

YA-- A series of stories about the Vietnam experience, based on the author's recollections. O'Brien begins by sharing the talismans and treasures his select small band of young soldiers carry into battle. The tales, ranging from a paragraph to 20 or so pages, reveal one truth after another. Sometimes the author tells the same story from different points of view, revealing the lingering, sometimes consuming, effect war leaves on the soul. In the end, readers are left with a mental and emotional sphere of mirrors, each reflecting a speck of truth about the things men carry into and out of war. In addition to leisure reading, this collection offers potential for history classes studying war, for English classes doing units on short stories, and perhaps for sociology or psychology assignments.-- Barbara Hawkins, West Potomac High, Fairfax County, VA

'One of the best war books of this century, an unflinching attempt to illuminate both its obscene physical brutality and the terrible mental overload' Guardian

'A thrilling and beautiful distillation of everything that has been thought, felt, or said about the Vietnam War and its long afterburn. A heartbreaking and healing masterpiece; time will make it a classic' Michael Herr, author of Dispatches

'Essential...O'Brien captures the war's pulsating rhythms and nerve-racking dangers...a stunning performance. The overall effect of these original tales is devastating' New York Times