Tim O'Brien, the recipient of many of America's most esteemed literary prizes, is best known for his writing about America's Vietnam experience. O'Brien's interest grows out of his tour of duty as an infantry soldier in the Vietnam War, his moral opposition to this war, and the guilt he felt after serving.

If I Die in a Combat Zone, Going After Cacciato, The Things They Carried, Northern Lights, The Nuclear Age, and In the Lake of the Woods, all stem from O'Brien's own life stories, and are directly or indirectly about the Vietnam War. But to consider O'Brien only as a "war writer" would be to miss the depth and universality of his writing.

The moral and physical terrain of Vietnam serves as a heightened setting in which O'Brien explores the nature of truth, the function of memory and imagination, the possibility of moral courage, and the power of love. O'Brien doesn't try to provide answers to complex moral questions or human motivation. Instead, he uncovers mystery and ambiguity, and leads his readers to search for "story truth" - that is, emotional truth - and to explore his stories from different angles.