O'Brien, (William) Tim(othy)

O'Brien, [William] Tim[othy] (1946– ),novelist. Born in Minnesota, O'Brien was drafted immediately after graduation from Macalester College and sent to Vietnam, where he was wounded near My Lai. That experience has been the material of his novels, especially in three thinly fictionalized books that rank high in 20th‐century American war literature. If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (1973), his first book, is a series of linked sketches; his second, Going After Cacciato (1978), employs magic realism as it follows some breakaway members of a platoon marching across Asia to Paris (National Book Award, 1979); and The Things They Carried (1990), again platoon experiences, brings out the futility of getting at the truth of what actually happens, and why, in war. In the Lake of the Woods (1994) is a mystery in which the shadowy legacy of Vietnam stands as a symbol for the traumatic changes in society over the past few decades. The comic Tomcat in Love (1998) departs from O'Brien's concern with the Vietnam War experience, but as in his other works an unreliable narrator is employed to tell the novel's tale. In July, July (2002), ten old friends come together for their 30-year college reunion.