since left him. They visited several areas where he had been as a soldier, including
the site of the My Lai Massacre.
Criticism
Catherine Calloway, “‘How to Tell a True War Story’: Metafiction in The Things
They Carried,” Critique, 36 (Summer 1995): 249–257.
Explores the versions of various stories O’Brien tells and retells through The
Things They Carried, and discusses the purposes behind the metafictional
strategies.
Jen Dunnaway, “’One More Redskin Bites the Dirt’: Racial Melancholy in Viet-
nam War Representation,” Arizona Quarterly, 64 (Spring 2008): 109–129.
One of very few works to take up the issue of race in O’Brien’s work; also looks
at Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine; much of the analysis is of the character
Kiowa.
Susan Farrell, “Tim O’Brien and Gender: A Defense of The Things They Carried,”
CEA Critic, 66 (Fall 2003): 1–21.
Thoughtfully argues against the idea that the text is overly masculinist by
separating the perspectives of the writer-narrator and what the reader discerns
about him and the characters. Farrell suggests that O’Brien presents trauma
as communicable through reading and storytelling, and that he implicitly cri-
tiques the characters’ beliefs that they understand war and gender. The article
provides close readings of many of the stories.
Benjamin Goluboff, “Tim O’Brien’s Quan Ngai,” ANQ, 17 (Spring 2004):
53–58.
Highlights the “realism” in O’Brien’s texts by tracing the verifiable historical
places and events mentioned.
Mark A. Heberle, A Trauma Artist: Tim O’Brien and the Fiction of Vietnam (Iowa
City: University of Iowa Press, 2001).
Defining the contemporary period as an age of trauma, looks at O’Brien’s work
in this context.
Tobey C. Herzog, Tim O’Brien (New York: Twayne, 1997).
Like most volumes in the Twayne United States Authors series, includes a bio-
graphical chapter and a chapter on each major work; very accessible. Herzog went
on to publish Writing Vietnam, Writing Life: Caputo, Heinemann, O’Brien, Butler
(Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2008), which also offers useful perspectives
on O’Brien and compares him to the other writers listed in its title.
Clara Juncker, “Not a Story to Pass On? Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam,” in Trans-
national America: Contours of Modern U .S. Culture, edited by Russell Duncan
and Juncker (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2004), pp. 111–124.
Discusses primarily Postmodernist elements in O’Brien’s works, especially in
comparison to Don DeLillo and Toni Morrison.