Father of All Things A Marine His Son & the Legacy of Vietnam

In April 1975, as Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army, John Bissell, a former Marine officer living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, was glued to his television. Struggling to save his marriage, raise his sons, and live with his memories of the war in Vietnam, Bissell found himself racked with anguish and horror as his country abandoned a cause for which so many of his friends had died.

Opening with a gripping account of the chaotic and brutal last month of the war, The Father of All Things is Tom Bissell's powerful reckoning with the Vietnam War and its impact on his father, his country, and Vietnam itself. Through him we learn what it was like to grow up with a gruff but oddly tender veteran father who would wake his children in the middle of the night when the memories got too painful. Bissell also explores the many debates about the war, from whether it was winnable to Ho Chi Minh's motivations to why America's leaders lied so often. Above all, he shows how the war has continued to influence American views on foreign policy more than thirty years later.

At the heart of this book is John and Tom Bissell's unforgettable journey back to Vietnam. As they travel the country and talk to Vietnamese veterans, we relive the war as John Bissell experienced it, visit the site of his near-fatal wounding, and hear him explain how Vietnam shaped him and so many of his generation.

This is the first major book about the war by an author who grew up after the fall of Saigon. It is a fascinating, all-too-relevant work about the American character — and about war itself. It is also a wise and moving book about fathers, sons, and the universal desire to understand who our parents were before they became our parents.

"Bissell delivers a riveting, you-are-there account of the fall of Saigon — not just the dust-kicking helicopters and hands poking through embassy gates, but the behind-the-scenes activities of the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Henry Kissinger." Kirkus Reviews

"A permanent contribution to the essential literature of America's catastrophic misadventure in Vietnam....This is a triumphant piece of work." Norman Rush

"Bissell's prose can veer from skeweringly exact to over-the-top. Still, his keen desire to know the story behind his father's service in Vietnam lends the book an energy that makes it compelling." Seattle Times

"Bissell...brings more than just a 'lifetime of thinking' about Vietnam to his task. He also brings a luminous prose style and, perhaps more important, a clear, fresh eye to events that many of us have allowed to slip into the infuriatingly painful past." New York Times

"Given the volume of history and the breadth of the travel writing, there are times when the book seems to pay insufficient attention to the father-son relationship. But their exchanges are always memorable." Los Angeles Times

Tom Bissell is the author of Chasing the Sea and God Lives in St. Petersburg, and a contributing editor for Harper's Magazine and The Virginia Quarterly Review. In 2006 he was awarded the Rome Fellowship by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and his work has been selected several times by the "Best American Short Stories," "Best American Travel Writing," and "Best American Science Writing" series. He lives in Rome.