Tim O'Brien (author)
Encyclopedia
Tim O'Brien is an American
novelist who often writes about his experiences in the Vietnam War
and the impact the war had on the American servicemen who fought there. He has held the endowed chair at the MFA program
of Texas State University-San Marcos several times, from 2003 to 2004, then from 2005 to 2006, and a third time from 2008 to 2009.
, a city of about 20,000 (a setting which figures prominently in his novels). When O'Brien was twelve, his family, including a younger sister and brother, moved to Worthington, Minnesota
, a place that once billed itself as "the turkey capital of the world." Worthington had a large influence on O’Brien’s imagination and early development as an author. The town is located on Lake Okabena in the western portion of the state and serves as the setting for some of his stories, especially those in the novel The Things They Carried
. He earned his BA in Political Science
from Macalester College
, where he was Student Body President, in 1968. That same year he was drafted into the Army and was sent to Vietnam
, where he served from 1968 to 1970 in 3rd Platoon, A Co., 5th Batt. 46th Inf., as an infantryman. O'Brien's tour of duty was 1969–70. He served in the Americal Division
, the division that contained the unit involved in the infamous My Lai Massacre
. 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 wondered why the place was so hostile. We did not know there had been a massacre there a year earlier. The news about that only came out later, while we were there, and then we knew."
Upon completing his tour of duty, O'Brien went on to graduate school
at Harvard University
and received an internship at the Washington Post. His writing career was launched in 1973 with the release of If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, about his war experiences. In this memoir, O'Brien writes: "Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories."
While O' Brien insists it is not his job or his place to discuss the politics of the Vietnam War, he does occasionally pass commentary. Speaking years later about his upbringing and the war, O'Brien called his hometown "a town that congratulates itself, day after day, on its own ignorance of the world: a town that got us into Vietnam. Uh, the people in that town sent me to that war, you know, couldn't spell the word 'Hanoi
' if you spotted them three vowels." Contrasting the continuing American search for U.S. MIA/POWs in Vietnam
with the reality of the Vietnamese war dead, he calls the American perspective "A perverse and outrageous double standard. What if things were reversed? What if the Vietnamese were to ask us, or to require us, to locate and identify each of their own MIAs? Numbers alone make it impossible: 100,000 is a conservative estimate. Maybe double that. Maybe triple. From my own sliver of experience — one year at war, one set of eyes — I can testify to the lasting anonymity of a great many Vietnamese dead."
One attribute in O'Brien's work is the blur between fiction
and reality
; labeled "verisimilitude," his work contains actual details of the situations he experienced; while that is not unusual, his conscious, explicit, and metafictional approach to the distinction between fiction and fact is extraordinary: In the chapter "Good Form" in The Things They Carried
, O'Brien casts a distinction between "story-truth" (the truth of fiction) and "happening-truth" (the truth of fact or occurrence), writing that "story-truth is sometimes truer than happening-truth." Story truth is emotional truth; thus the feeling created by a fictional story is sometimes truer than what results from reading the facts. Certain sets of stories in The Things They Carried
seem to contradict each other, and certain stories are designed to "undo" the suspension of disbelief created in previous stories; for example, "Speaking of Courage" is followed by "Notes", which explains in what ways "Speaking of Courage" is fictional.
O'Brien received the National Book Award
in 1979 for his book Going After Cacciato
. His novel In the Lake of the Woods won the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction
in 1995. His most recent novel is July, July.
O'Brien's papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
.
O’Brien writes and lives in central Texas, where he raises his young sons and teaches full-time every other year at Texas State University–San Marcos
. In alternate years, he teaches several workshops to MFA students in the creative writing program.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novelist who often writes about his experiences in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and the impact the war had on the American servicemen who fought there. He has held the endowed chair at the MFA program
Texas State University MFA
The Texas State University MFA Program at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas is a three-year graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. Fiction writer Tom Grimes is currently the director of the program. The faculty includes many award winning writers...
of Texas State University-San Marcos several times, from 2003 to 2004, then from 2005 to 2006, and a third time from 2008 to 2009.
Life and career
O'Brien was born in Austin, MinnesotaAustin, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 23,314 people, 9,897 households, and 6,076 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,168.2 people per square mile . There were 10,261 housing units at an average density of 954.3 per square mile...
, a city of about 20,000 (a setting which figures prominently in his novels). When O'Brien was twelve, his family, including a younger sister and brother, moved to Worthington, Minnesota
Worthington, Minnesota
Worthington is a city in Nobles County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 12,764 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Nobles County.The city's site was first settled in the 1870s as Okabena Station on a line of the Chicago, St...
, a place that once billed itself as "the turkey capital of the world." Worthington had a large influence on O’Brien’s imagination and early development as an author. The town is located on Lake Okabena in the western portion of the state and serves as the setting for some of his stories, especially those in the novel The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin, 1990...
. He earned his BA in Political Science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
from Macalester College
Macalester College
Macalester College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 as a Presbyterian-affiliated but nonsectarian college. Its first class entered September 15, 1885. The college is located on a campus in a historic residential neighborhood...
, where he was Student Body President, in 1968. That same year he was drafted into the Army and was sent to Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, where he served from 1968 to 1970 in 3rd Platoon, A Co., 5th Batt. 46th Inf., as an infantryman. O'Brien's tour of duty was 1969–70. He served in the Americal Division
Americal Division
The 23rd Infantry Division, more commonly known as the Americal Division of the United States Army was formed in May 1942 on the island of New Caledonia. In the immediate emergency following Pearl Harbor, the United States had hurriedly sent three individual regiments to defend New Caledonia...
, the division that contained the unit involved in the infamous My Lai Massacre
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
. 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 wondered why the place was so hostile. We did not know there had been a massacre there a year earlier. The news about that only came out later, while we were there, and then we knew."
Upon completing his tour of duty, O'Brien went on to graduate school
Graduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and received an internship at the Washington Post. His writing career was launched in 1973 with the release of If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, about his war experiences. In this memoir, O'Brien writes: "Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories."
While O' Brien insists it is not his job or his place to discuss the politics of the Vietnam War, he does occasionally pass commentary. Speaking years later about his upbringing and the war, O'Brien called his hometown "a town that congratulates itself, day after day, on its own ignorance of the world: a town that got us into Vietnam. Uh, the people in that town sent me to that war, you know, couldn't spell the word 'Hanoi
Hanoi
Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...
' if you spotted them three vowels." Contrasting the continuing American search for U.S. MIA/POWs in Vietnam
Vietnam War POW/MIA issue
The Vietnam War POW/MIA issue concerns the fate of United States servicemen who were reported as missing in action during the Vietnam War and associated theaters of operation in Southeast Asia...
with the reality of the Vietnamese war dead, he calls the American perspective "A perverse and outrageous double standard. What if things were reversed? What if the Vietnamese were to ask us, or to require us, to locate and identify each of their own MIAs? Numbers alone make it impossible: 100,000 is a conservative estimate. Maybe double that. Maybe triple. From my own sliver of experience — one year at war, one set of eyes — I can testify to the lasting anonymity of a great many Vietnamese dead."
One attribute in O'Brien's work is the blur between fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
and reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
; labeled "verisimilitude," his work contains actual details of the situations he experienced; while that is not unusual, his conscious, explicit, and metafictional approach to the distinction between fiction and fact is extraordinary: In the chapter "Good Form" in The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin, 1990...
, O'Brien casts a distinction between "story-truth" (the truth of fiction) and "happening-truth" (the truth of fact or occurrence), writing that "story-truth is sometimes truer than happening-truth." Story truth is emotional truth; thus the feeling created by a fictional story is sometimes truer than what results from reading the facts. Certain sets of stories in The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried
The Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin, 1990...
seem to contradict each other, and certain stories are designed to "undo" the suspension of disbelief created in previous stories; for example, "Speaking of Courage" is followed by "Notes", which explains in what ways "Speaking of Courage" is fictional.
O'Brien received the National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
in 1979 for his book Going After Cacciato
Going After Cacciato
Going After Cacciato is a war novel written by author Tim O'Brien and winner of the National Book Award for fiction in 1979. This complex novel is set during the Vietnam War and is told from the point of view of the protagonist, Paul Berlin...
. His novel In the Lake of the Woods won the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction
James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction
The James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction is a biannual award given by The Society of American Historians. The prize is given "to honor works of literary fiction that significantly advance the historical imagination" . The prize is named for nineteenth century American...
in 1995. His most recent novel is July, July.
O'Brien's papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
.
O’Brien writes and lives in central Texas, where he raises his young sons and teaches full-time every other year at Texas State University–San Marcos
Texas State University–San Marcos
Texas State University–San Marcos is a doctoral-granting university located in San Marcos, Texas...
. In alternate years, he teaches several workshops to MFA students in the creative writing program.
Works
- If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (1973)
- Northern Lights (1975)
- "Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?"Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?" is a short story by Tim O'Brien. It was written in May 1975. -Plot:The main character, Paul Berlin is in the Vietnam War. Recently, Billy Boy Watkins had died of a heart attack after losing a foot due to a mine...
" (1975) - Going After CacciatoGoing After CacciatoGoing After Cacciato is a war novel written by author Tim O'Brien and winner of the National Book Award for fiction in 1979. This complex novel is set during the Vietnam War and is told from the point of view of the protagonist, Paul Berlin...
(1978) - The Nuclear Age (1985)
- The Things They CarriedThe Things They CarriedThe Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin, 1990...
(1990) - In the Lake of the WoodsIn the Lake of the WoodsIn the Lake of the Woods is a novel by Tim O'Brien, author of Pulitzer Prize-nominated The Things They Carried. An example of O'Brien's recurring Vietnam War theme, In the Lake of the Woods follows the struggle of John Wade to deal with a recently failed campaign for the United States Senate...
(1994) - Tomcat in LoveTomcat in LoveTomcat in Love is a novel by Tim O'Brien, about the misadventures of a womanizing linguistics Professor, Thomas H. Chippering, originally published in hardcover by Broadway Books, in 1998. Chippering is obsessive about proper use of the English language, and employs many examples of wordplay...
(1998) - July, JulyJuly, JulyJuly, July is a novel by National Book Award Winner Tim O'Brien, about the 30th reunion of a graduating college class of 1969 that happened a year too late. It's filled with characters bent up by society's pliers, and it constantly flashes back to moments that shaped their lives...
(2002)
External links
- Tim O'Brien video interview on Big Think 4/20/10
- Beyondthemargins 3/25/2010 Interview with Tim O'Brien on www.Beyondthemargins.com
- Tim O'Brien, novelist Official Website
- 1990 audio interview with Tim O'Brien at Wired for Books.org by Don SwaimDon SwaimDon Swaim is an American journalist and broadcaster.Born in Kansas, Swaim earned a degree in broadcast journalism from Ohio University and worked as editor, writer, producer, reporter and anchor at WCBS in New York and CBS in Baltimore....
- Online book discussion of Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" at www.BookTalk.org
- Tim O'Brien's papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at AustinUniversity of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
. - Tim O'Brien's Writer's Reflect at the Harry Ransom Center.
- A message to the Danbury, Connecticut community, where The Things They Carried was selected as the "One Book, One Community" selection for 2010.