Going After Cacciato
By (Author) Tim OBrien
HarperCollins Publishers
Fourth Estate Ltd
13th July 1988
14th April 1988
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
813.54
Paperback
336
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 21mm
230g
Winner of the National Book Award, Going After Cacciato captures the peculiar mixture of horror and hallucination that marked the Vietnam War, this strangest of wars.
In a blend of reality and fantasy, this novel tells the story of a young soldier who one day lays down his rifle and sets off on a quixotic journey from the jungles of Indochina to the streets of Paris.
In its memorable evocation of men both fleeing from and meeting the demands of battle, Going After Cacciato stands as much more than just a great war novel. Ultimately it's about the forces of fear and heroism that do battle in the hearts of us all.
To call Going After Cacciato a novel about war is like calling Moby-Dick a novel about whales. OBriens writing is crisp, authentic and grimly ironic a major achievement New York Times Book Review
Not only the best novel about the Vietnam War, but among the finest works of fiction in contemporary American literature Philip Caputo, Esquire
His irony recalls that of Stendhal, his landscapes have the breadth and scope of Tolstoys, and the essential American innocence of his vision deserves to stand beside that of Stephen Crane National Book Award citation
Tim OBrien was born in Minnesota and served as a foot soldier in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970, and after graduate studies at Harvard worked as a reporter for the Washington Post. When If I Die in a Combat Zone was published in 1973, it established him as one of the leading American writers of his generation, a status that was confirmed when Going After Cacciato won the National Book Award for fiction.