The Things They Carried
Tim O'Brien · 1990
A linked story collection about the Vietnam War that interrogates the nature of storytelling itself. O'Brien's famous question, "How do you tell a true war story?," is answered and re-answered across these pages. Required reading in every sense.
The case against
O'Brien tells you a story, tells you it was a lie, then tells you the lying was the truest part. Done once, the move is devastating; done a dozen times, it becomes a tic, an author having it both ways while congratulating himself on honesty. Some chapters are perfect. The apparatus around them grows wearying.
Short Stories · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
