After growing up in Minnesota and graduating from college, Tim O'Brien received a draft notice and joined the war effort in Vietnam. He chronicled his combat experiences in his memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home, and then went on to write the eight novels that are discussed in this volume. The novels reflect their characters' struggle with the effects of place, namely small-town America, in the Vietnam Era.

Works included in this volume:

If I Die in a Combat Zone

Northern Lights

Going After Cacciato

The Nuclear Age

The Things They Carried

In the Lake of the Woods

Tomcat in Love

July, July