Tim O'Brien

War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.
- Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried (1990)

- O’Brien’s most famous book, a collection of linked short stories about the war, is The Things They Carried (1990). The stories blur the line between fiction and memoir; they feature a character named “Tim O’Brien” — but O’Brien the author insists it’s a work of fiction. He wrote: “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” The Things They Carried was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.