The Father of All Things
A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam
By Tom Bissell
(Vintage, Paperback, 9781400075430, 432pp.)
Publication Date: March 11, 2008
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Hardcover
Categories: Personal Memoirs
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The Father of All Things is a riveting, haunting, and often hilarious account of a veteran and his son’s journey through Vietnam. As his father recounts his experiences as a soldier, including a near fatal injury, Tom Bissell weaves a larger history of the war and explores the controversies that still spark furious debate today. Blending history, memoir, and travelogue, The Father of All Things is a portrait of the war’s personal, political, and cultural impact from the perspective of the generation that grew up in the wake of the conflict. It is also a wise and revelatory book about the bond between fathers and sons.
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.
“Powerful. . .eloquent and in-depth. . . . The Father of All Things is a one-of-a-kind accomplishment.” —The Washington Post Book World“A fresh and comprehensive look at the Vietnam era. . . . Bissell’s powerful writing forces one to open one’s eyes and take in the enormity of the moral abyss.” —The San Francisco Chronicle “Beautifully written. . . .Tom Bissell is superb. His description of today’s Vietnam are breathtaking and deep.” —Los Angeles Times “Haunting . . . emotionally powerful. . . . Bissell 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." —The New York Times Book Review
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