O'Brien, Tim

(US, 1946– )

Tim O'Brien was drafted into Vietnam in 1968, and though he opposed the war, he served. Much of his fiction deals with the emotional and visceral realities of the Vietnam War, though his most enduring themes are of love, courage, and truths of the human heart. Start with his 1990 book The Things They Carried, which reflects both the raw, brutal truth and the dream-like unreality of war. Move on to Going After Cacciato (1978, National Book Award), a beautiful, haunting story of a young soldier who deserts his post in Vietnam with the dream of getting to Paris. Finally, read O'Brien's 1994 novel, In the Lake of the Woods, about a Minnesota politician who loses an election (and his wife) when it is discovered that he was involved in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

Joseph Heller, Robert Olen Butler, Ernest Hemingway  AS