(Semi)Local boy does good
June 12th, 2007 Sarah - Alicia Ashman
All right, I may be stretching it a bit to call a writer from Escanaba, Michigan (in the UP) a “local” boy. He may not be a Wisconsinite, but he is from the Midwest. Close enough.
The author is question is Tom Bissell, who is rapidly becoming a rising star in both fiction and nonfiction. But the important thing to know here is that his new memoir, The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam, is one of the best books I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.
Which is not to say it’s a happy book. It is, in one volume, a brief history of the Vietnam War, most particularly the fall of Saigon in 1975; it is a travelogue of a Vietnam War veteran who returns to Vietnam in 2004 with his son; and it is a memoir of a son who is trying very hard to understand what the war did to his father, as well as to all of his father’s subsequent relationships.
It’s a beautiful book, and it is a thoughtful book. The line that stays with me is actually from the preface: “What any war’s igniters rarely admit are the small, terrible truths that have held firm for every war ever fought, no matter how necessary or avoidable: This will be horrible, and whatever happens will scar us for decades to come.”
Entry Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Nonfiction
4 Comments Add your own
1. Veronica | June 14th, 2007 at 9:10 am
The book sounds fab! I’m going to give it a try. Thanks for the recommendation.
2. Sarah | June 15th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Veronica,
I’m glad you’re going to try this one: I have very little objectivity where Bissell is concerned, but I think he’s just a beautiful writer.
3. Lisa | May 27th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Sarah, I finally got around to reading this book. Thinking it was more travelogue/memoir than history, it was definitely more than I bargained for. Embarrassingly, having come of age in the Vietnam era, I know next to nothing about the war itself. (I was too busy coming of age.) So Bissell’s incredible summation of the period gave me my first real lesson in the details of the conflict. Of course, the interaction between father and son was the most poignant part. An eye opener to realize that the war has this lasting impact (you caught it with your quote) on families…that children live(d) with this elephant in the room which defines their fathers, and themselves, really, but yet so rarely spoken of. Difficult not to extrapolate to the impact of the Iraq war on the current generation, especially now that women are over there. Bissell IS a great writer.
4. Sarah | May 30th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Lisa,
I’m so glad you read this–Tom Bissell is a vastly underappreciated supertalent, in my opinion.
Your thoughts about the current conflict and the problems to come, particularly for family of military members, mirror mine exactly. It’s part of what made this book so heartbreaking.
Thanks for the comment!
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