s p o t l i g h t
GOING AFTER CACCIATO
AUTHOR
Tim O'Brien (U.S., 1946- ), aka William Timothy O’Brien
AWARDS
National Book Award (1979)
RELEASED
1978
SUMMARY
A magical realist blend of horror and comedy marking the Vietnam War. Cacciato has been compared to work by Gabriel García Márquez and other Latin American magical realists. The book was considered a breakthrough for O'Brien in terms of critical and commercial success, compared in this way by the New York Times Book Review: "To call Going After Cacciato a novel about war is like calling Moby Dick a novel about whales." When Cacciato was released, it had only been three years since the end of the Vietnam war, a turbulent time still fresh in the American consciousness. Critics were surprised by the book's popularity and success, because there were assumptions that a novel about the war might not be embraced objectively or appreciated on its own terms. O'Brien has continued to revise Cacciato since its first release, meaning there are several different versions of it available.
AUTHOR LINKS
Tim O'Brien home page
Tim O'Brien: An Introduction to His Writing, from Ken Lopez, Bookseller
BOOK REVIEW
From the Seattle Times, November 2002
"(O'Brien's) 1979 National Book Award-winner, Going After Cacciato, is a tour de force amalgam of gritty, in-your-face brutality and flights of magic-realism fancy that somehow serve to underscore the horror of war by emphasizing its nightmarish unreality."
EXCERPT
From
Random House
INTERVIEWS
Bookreporter.com
Readers Read
OVERVIEW
by Brandi C. Smith, The University of Oklahoma
ARTICLE
TELLING THE TRUE WAR STORY, by Gillian Devereau for Port Folio
BACKGROUNDER ON TIM O'BRIEN
Southwest Texas State University
BOOK GROUP RESOURCES
From Reading Group Guides.com
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