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1 Beaverton Literature- A to Z

If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home

by Tim O'Brien

If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home Cover

ISBN13: 9780767904438
ISBN10: 0767904435
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

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Staff Pick

During the Vietnam war, Tim O'Brien spent a year in the U.S. infantry. As a result, he wrote If I Die in a Combat Zone (Box Me Up and Ship Me Home), an account of his experiences there. He doesn't spare us the terrible particulars of this piece of our history: it's what has made us; it is us; and it's the story that we continue to tell ourselves. War is the engine of horror and dead souls from which we do not seem to be able to part.
Recommended by Gin, Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Before writing his award-winning Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year as a foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him to experience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk the minefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and to explore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone terribly wrong. Beautifully written and searingly heartfelt, If I Die in a Combat Zone is a masterwork of its genre.

Review:

"O'Brien brilliantly and quietly evokes the foot soldier's daily life in the paddies and foxholes, evokes a blind, blundering war. . . . Tim O'Brien writes with the care and eloquence of someone for whom communication is still a vital possibility. . . . A personal document of aching clarity. . . . A beautiful, painful book."

--The New York Times Book Review

"One of the best, most disturbing, and most powerful books about the shame that was / is Vietnam."

--Minneapolis Star and Tribune

About the Author

Tim O'Brien received the 1979 National Book Award in Fiction for Going After Cacciato. His novel The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix de Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. His two most recent novels, In the Lake of the Woods and Tomcat in Love, were national bestsellers.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
megcampbell3, July 22, 2007 (view all comments by megcampbell3)
Deceptively simple language. Straight forward story-telling. Layers of actuality, written after the fact, looking back. Men. War. Boys. War. Home. Responsibility. Self. Idealism. Others. Geography. Wounds. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. This is the memoir of one of our most important writers. On par with great literature, this book will never fail to have something important to show us through the ages. Upon multiple readings, another layer will always be revealed. If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home is a perfect book about an imperfect history.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780767904438
Subtitle:
Box Me Up and Ship Me Home
Author:
O'Brien, Tim
Publisher:
Broadway Books
Location:
New York :
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Biography
Subject:
Historical - U.S.
Subject:
Military
Subject:
Vietnamese conflict, 1961-1975
Subject:
Soldiers
Subject:
Personal narratives, american
Subject:
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Subject:
Vietnamese Conflict, 19
Subject:
O'Brien, Tim
Edition Description:
1st Broadway Books trade pbk. ed.
Publication Date:
September 1999
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
224
Dimensions:
8.12x5.30x.61 in. .42 lbs.

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