There are many wonderful and talented authors with October birthdays. Selecting one author was difficult.
I selected novelist Tim O’Brien, a personal favorite of my son Christian.
His writing stays with you long after you have finished the final page.
Sometimes when I’m reading a novel by another author, I stop and wonder how O’Brien would have written a particular paragraph or how he would have crafted the characters.
Tim O’Brien was born in Austin, Minnesota on October 1, 1946.
His family moved to Worthington, a town on Lake Okabena in the southwestern part of Minnesota, when he was ten. Worthington is featured as the setting for several of his stories.
In 1968, O’Brien graduated from Macalester College with a B.A. in political science. Immediately after graduation, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Vietnam. He served from 1969-1970 in 3rd Platoon, Company A, 5th Battalion, 46th Infantry Regiment. His regiment was part of the 23rd Infantry Division which contained the unit that perpetrated the My Lai Massacre a year before his arrival in Vietnam. O’Brien and his fellow soldiers wondered why the people in My Lai were so hostile compared to other civilians they encountered. They were unaware of the massacre because the Army initially covered it up. He was still stationed in the area when he and his fellow soldiers learned of the massacre.
After his tour of duty ended, O’Brien returned stateside and attended graduate school at Harvard University. He obtained an internship with the Washington Post after completing his studies.
In 1973, he published his first book, a memoir about his war experiences, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up, and Send Me Home.
Most of his work, including The Things They Carried, a collection of semi-autobiographical short stories about his war experiences in Vietnam, are influenced by his experiences as a soldier and a Vietnam veteran.
O’Brien purposely blurs the line between fact and fiction in his work by blending actual events from his life and war recollections from fellow soldiers with unconfirmed stories that circulated in combat zones.
He contends that the “truth of fiction” is often more accurate than the “truth of fact or occurrence,” because “story truth” is emotional truth.
In 2001, he married Meredith Baker. They have two children, and presently live in Texas.
Although O’Brien doesn’t consider himself a spokesman for the Vietnam War, he was interviewed for Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War and Ken Burns's 2017 documentary series The Vietnam War. Because of his war experiences and the Vietnamese civilians he interacted with, O’Brien often speaks out about the tragic loss of life on both sides and the Vietnamese soldiers who remain missing in action in addition to MIA American soldiers.
O’Brien continues to write, and he teaches full-time every other year at Texas State University – San Marcos. In alternate years, he teaches workshops for MFA students in the creative writing program.
Happy Birthday, Tim O’Brien!
Works by Tim O’Brien:
Memoir:
If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up, and Send Me Home (1973)
Dad’s Maybe Book (2019)
Fiction:
Northern Lights (1975)
Going After Cacciato (1978)
The Nuclear Age (1985)
The Things They Carried (1990)
In the Lake of the Woods (1994)
Tomcat in Love (1998)
July, July (2002)
American Fantastica (2023)
Other Works:
“Where Have You Gone, Charming Billy?” (1975) a short story
Photo of Tim O’Brien:
By Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141256663