This collection of seven essays, like the carefully linked collection of vignettes within Tim O’Brien’s most popular book The Things They Carried, contains multiple critical and biographical angles with recurring threads of life events, themes, characters, creative techniques, and references to all of O’Brien’s books. Grounded in through research, Herzog’s work illustrates how O’Brien merges his life experiences with his creative production; he rarely misses an opportunity to introduce these critical life events into his writing.
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ix | |
| Preface |
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xi | |
| Acknowledgments |
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xiii | |
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1 The Things He Carries: "Fractured Love Stories" |
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1 | (36) |
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2 The Thing He Carried and the War Stories He Tells |
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37 | (32) |
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3 Siegfried Sassoon and Tim O'Brien: Good Soldiers Fighting and Writing Unholy Wars |
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69 | (34) |
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4 Tim O'Brien's Creative Rotary and "True Lies (?)" |
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103 | (23) |
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5 Tim O'Brien's Best Novel (?): Emerging Authors, Accidental Tourists, and Existential Guides |
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126 | (27) |
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6 Footnotes and Quotes: Tracking the Elusive Tim O'Brien in In the Lake of the Woods |
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153 | (23) |
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7 The Wars of the Living and the Final (?) Fractured Love Stories: July, July |
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176 | (23) |
| Bibliography |
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199 | (6) |
| Index |
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205 | |
Tobey C. Herzog, a Vietnam Veteran, is an Emeritus Professor of English and the Emeritus Anne and Andrew T. Ford Chair in the Liberal Arts, Wabash College. He has authored three books on American narratives on the Vietnam experience: Vietnam War Stories: Innocence Lost; Tim OBrien; and Writing Vietnam, Writing Life.
