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Tim O'Brien
by
Catherine Calloway
  • LAST REVIEWED: 20 February
  • LAST MODIFIED: 20 February
  • DOI: /obo/

  • Ciocia, Stefania. Vietnam and Beyond: Tim O’Brien and the Power of Storytelling. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press,

    DOI: /UPO

    Approaches O’Brien’s work thematically, not chronologically like other studies, and with a special focus on O’Brien’s notion of story-truth and his use of gender. Covers all of O’Brien’s major works from If I Die in a Combat Zone to July, July.

  • Heberle, Mark A. A Trauma Artist: Tim O’Brien and the Fiction of Vietnam. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press,

    DOI: /20q1x7d

    A seminal study of O’Brien’s life and work. Examines all of O’Brien’s major works, including Tomcat in Love and parts of July, July, through the lens of trauma theory in an attempt “to view O’Brien’s works within the framework of abnormal psychology and posttraumatic narratives” (p. xi).

  • Herzog, Tobey C. Tim O’Brien. New York: Twayne,

    The most important early study of O’Brien’s oeuvre. Includes biographical information as well as a thoughtful analysis of O’Brien’s texts from If I Die in a Combat Zone through In the Lake of the Woods.

  • Herzog, Tobey C. Tim O’Brien: The Things He Carries and the Stories He Tells. New York: Routledge,

    A collection of seven essays that cover O’Brien’s entire oeuvre and that are thematically linked, especially in regard to “the stories of fractured love that O’Brien carries with him in his own life and into his writings” (p. xii).

  • Kaplan, Steven. Understanding Tim O’Brien. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,

    The first book-length study of O’Brien’s major work. Long out of print. Covers works through In the Lake of the Woods.

  • Smith, Patrick A. Tim O’Brien: A Critical Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood,

    Contains chapters on all of O’Brien’s major works. Organized by plot and character development, theme, and relev

    • Tim O'Brien (author)

    American novelist (born )

    For other people of the same name, see Tim O'Brien (disambiguation).

    Tim O'Brien (born October 1, ) is an American novelist who served as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Much of his writing is about wartime Vietnam, and his work later in life often explores the postwar lives of its veterans.

    O'Brien is perhaps best known for his book The Things They Carried (), a collection of linked semi-autobiographical stories inspired by his wartime experiences. In , The New York Times described it as "a classic of contemporary war fiction." O'Brien wrote the war novel, Going After Cacciato (), which was awarded the National Book Award.

    O'Brien taught creative writing, holding the endowed chair at the MFA program of Texas State University–San Marcos every other academic year from to

    Biography

    Early life

    Tim O'Brien was born in Austin, Minnesota on October 1, , the son of William Timothy O'Brien and Ava Eleanor Schultz O'Brien. When he was ten, his family – including a younger brother and sister – moved to Worthington, Minnesota. Worthington had a large influence on O’Brien's imagination and his early development as an author. The town is on Lake Okabena in the southwestern part of the state and serves as the setting for some of his stories, especially those in The Things They Carried.

    Military service

    O'Brien earned his BA in in political science from Macalester College, where he was student body president. That same year he was drafted into the United States Army and was sent to Vietnam, where he served from to in 3rd Platoon, Company A, 5th Battalion, 46th Infantry Regiment, part of the 23rd Infantry Division (the Americal Division) that contained the unit that perpetrated the My Lai Massacre the year before his arrival. O'Brien has said that when his unit got to the area around My Lai (referred to as "Pinkvil

    Tim O'Brien (author)

    Tim O'Brien (born October 1, ) is an American novelist who served as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Much of his writing is about wartime Vietnam, and his work later in life often explores the postwar lives of its veterans.

    O'Brien is perhaps best known for his book The Things They Carried (), a collection of linked semi-autobiographical stories inspired by his wartime experiences. In , The New York Times described it as "a classic of contemporary war fiction." O'Brien wrote the war novel, Going After Cacciato (), which was awarded the National Book Award.

    O'Brien taught creative writing, holding the endowed chair at the MFA program of Texas State University–San Marcos every other academic year from to

    Biography

    [change | change source]

    Early life

    [change | change source]

    Tim O'Brien was born in Austin, Minnesota on October 1, , the son of William Timothy O'Brien and Ava Eleanor Schultz O'Brien. When he was ten, his family – including a younger brother and sister – moved to Worthington, Minnesota. Worthington had a large influence on O’Brien's imagination and his early development as an author. The town is on Lake Okabena in the southwestern part of the state and serves as the setting for some of his stories, especially those in The Things They Carried.

    Military service

    [change | change source]

    O'Brien earned his BA in in political science from Macalester College, where he was student body president. That same year he was drafted into the United States Army and was sent to Vietnam, where he served from to in 3rd Platoon, Company A, 5th Battalion, 46th Infantry Regiment, part of the 23rd Infantry Division (the Americal Division) that contained the unit that perpetrated the My Lai Massacre the year before his arrival. O'Brien has said that when his unit got to the area around My Lai (referred to as "Pinkville" by the U.S. forces), "we all wond

    Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. More books than SparkNotes.

    Tim O'Brien describes the Vietnam War as the most significant event in his life, and it is the subject, directly or indirectly, of most of his work. "The good writer must write beyond his moment," the author proclaimed in an interview. While his novels and memoir mostly concern the war, their thematic scope is timeless. His most-cited influence is Joseph Conrad: both authors address questions about man's capacity for evil and humanity. O'Brien's writing also shows the influence of Ernest Hemingway, and to a lesser extent, William Faulkner. But O'Brien is best known for a blurring of fiction and non-fiction that is purely his own.

    O'Brien grew up in the small town of Austin, Minnesota, and moved at the age of ten to Worthington, Minnesota, which serves as the backdrop to several stories in The Things They Carried. He attended Macalester College and served as an infantryman in the Vietnam War from to He completed graduate studies at Harvard University and worked briefly as a reporter at The Washington Post before launching his literary career with the publication of If I Die in a Combat Zone in This straightforward memoir about the despair and futility of being a soldier established him as a leading writer of the Vietnam generation.

    After his memoir, O'Brien wrote Northern Lights (), Going After Cacciato (), which won the National Book Award, In the Lake of the Woods (), Tomcat in Love (), and July, July (). All are in part based on his war experiences, but most are novels, rather than memoirs. The Things They Carried, published in , stretches both categories. It is neither quite classifiable as fiction nor non-fiction, neither quite a novel nor a collection of short stories. In the work itself, O'Brien distinguishes between "story-truth" and "happening-truth." He defines the latter as events as they actually occur

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