Tim O'Brien

Tim O'Brien Books and Short Stories

O'Brien's books center around his identity as a soldier and his experience in the Vietnam War. Two of his most famous novels are In the Lake of the Woods and Going After Cacciato. The Things They Carried is a collection of linked short stories.

Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods

In the Lake of the Woods follows a haunted politician and veteran, John Wade. Despite Wade's personal issues caused by the trauma of his childhood and the Vietnam War, his career as a politician was excelling. But as he's running for the U.S. Senate, Wade's career and life crumble around him when the media reveals that Wade's platoon was responsible for the infamous My Lai Massacre. Although Wade was deeply disturbed by what happened at My Lai—he never wanted to hurt anyone and is haunted by his role in the accidental death of his friend and an old Vietnamese man—his reputation is ruined.

When Wade and his wife retreat to a cabin in Minnesota near the Canadian border to recover from his public disgrace, Wade's wife goes missing. Giving readers clues, anecdotes about Wade's history, and quotes from other people in town, the narrator leaves it up to the audience to determine what actually happened to Kathy Wade: did her husband murder her? Did she run away? Did she get lost in the Canadian wilderness?

The rural setting adds to the tension in the story: did the haunted veteran hide his wife's body in the Canadian wilderness or was he uninvolved in her disappearance?, unsplash

Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato

Another war novel set in the Vietnam War, Going After Cacciato, tells the story of a traumatized soldier going AWOL and his unit attempting to chase after him. The third-person narrator, Paul Berlin, details the events that transpire after Cacciato, another soldier in his squad, flees the war. Cacciato decides to walk from Vietnam to Paris by traveling through Asia. Berlin and other members of the unit attempt to capture him, but others argue that they turn back instead of risking their lives for one man. The timeline switches throughout the story, employing flashbacks and glimpses into the future.

Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried is a short story collection that links together stories from the Vietnam War. Although this is a work of fiction, the narrator is named Tim O'Brien. He catalogs everything he and his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company brought on their missions. From tangible things like letters, rifles, and candy, to intangible things like fear, anxiety, and guilt, the soldiers are all weighed down by one thing or another. The stories are full of recurring characters as they experience camaraderie, violence, loss, and death in the war. The narrator also discusses the guilt that several characters felt after killing people. Towards the end of the book, the narrator contemplates what he could tell his young daughter about killing a man with a grenade.

The Things They Carried is about both the literal and figurative things soldiers carry in war, such as guns, backpacks, fear, and pride, unsplash

Tim O'Brien Family

One of O'Brien's main sources of contention and his now-wife Meredith Baker was his reluctance to have children. Growing up with an alcoholic father, O'Brien said in interviews that he was worried that as a father, he would be physically and emotionally absent as his father was. He was also scared that having children would stop him from writing, and he didn't want to give that up.

In his 2020 documentary The War and Peace of Tim O'Brien, O'Brien said he would give up every book he wrote to have more time with his children. O'Brien didn't have his first child until he was 58. Now his two sons, Timmy and Tad, are the pride of his life. Having children so late has made O'Brien confront his mortality and nostalgic about the time he lost with them. He touches on this in his documentary as well as in his 2019 memoir Dad's Maybe Book, a composition of letters and advice that he shares with his sons.

Tim O'Brien Quotes

As O'Brien is considered a war author, many of his quotes center around wisdom he learned in Vietnam. Although the majority of his books are fiction, his characters are based on his personal experience.

This quote comes from an interview with O'Brien in 2010. It speaks to one of the most dominant themes throughout his books: the horrors of war. O'Brien himself never believed in the Vietnam War, and many of his characters are soldiers who are also ambivalent about the violence of warfare. At once proud of their status as defenders of America and filled with guilt over the death and destruction they cause, O'Brien's characters know the chaos and horror of war all too well. Throughout his books, they also struggle to cope with their loss of innocence and their past lives, and the potential for death and the ultimate loss. O'Brien's fearfulness of loss is reflected in nearly all of his soldier characters.

This quote is taken from O'Brien's The Things They Carried. It speaks to O'Brien's personal tendency to work through his emotions in his fiction. Although the narrator in The Things They Carried is a fictional "Tim O'Brien," many of his experiences reflect those of the real O'Brien. In interviews, O'Brien has stated that often the war still doesn't feel real to him. Although his fellow soldiers are proud of their role in the war, he uses fiction to work through his feelings and remember his own past.

This quote was taken from a phone conversation with O'Brien in 2010. He talked about the similarities between the Vietnam War in the mid-20th century and the conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq at the start of the 21st century. Although O'Brien admired his fellow soldiers for their bravery, he never fully embraced his own identity as a soldier in the war. When reflecting on Vietnam, he stated that he felt guilty and constantly "questioned the rectitude of the war."² When thinking about war, he doesn't think in terms of which country is right or wrong. Instead, he thinks of the soldiers who are forced to commit atrocities and face death in the name of patriotism.

(1) "Tim O’Brien Biography," Chicago Public Library.

(2) "Tim O'Brien On Late-In-Life Fatherhood And The Things He Carried From Vietnam," npr.org,

(3) "'The Things They Carried,' 20 Years On," npr.org,

(4) Hodara, Susan. "Asking the Whole County to Embrace a War Story," The New York Times, (2010).