A Trauma Artist: Tim O'Brien and the Fiction of Vietnam (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“ . . . An enlightening journey through the life and works of a key voice in contemporary American literature.” -- Thomas Myers, author of Walking Point: American Narratives of Vietnam

“No one after Heberle will probably ever read O'Brien's texts as thoroughly or meticulously as he has ” -- Philip Beidler, author of American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam and Re-Writing America: Vietnam Authors in Their Generation

Product Description

A Trauma Artist examines how O'Brien's works variously rewrite his own traumatization during the war in Vietnam as a never-ending Þction that paradoxically "recovers" personal experience by both recapturing and (re)disguising it. Mark Heberle considers O'Brien's career as a writer through the prisms of post-traumatic stress disorder, postmodernist metaÞction, and post-World War II American political uncertainties and public violence. Based on recent conversations with O'Brien, previously published interviews, and new readings of all his works through 1999, this book is the Þrst study to concentrate on the role and representation of trauma as the central focus of all O'Brien's works, whether situated in Vietnam, in post-Vietnam America, or in the imagination of protagonists suspended between the two. By doing so, Heberle redeÞnes O'Brien as a major U.S. writer of the late twentieth century whose representations of self-damaging experiences and narratives of recovery characterize not only the war in Vietnam but also relationships between fathers and sons and men and women in the post-traumatic culture of the contemporary United States.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 364 pages
• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press; 1 edition (June 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877457611
• ISBN-13: 978-0877457619
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #530,549 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good resource, January 3, 2007

By	DSB - See all my reviews

I bought this for my students to use as a resource in my Vietnam War lit course. I'm enjoying it as much as my students.