{"product_id":"peace-is-a-shy-thing-the-life-and-art-of-tim-obrien-9781250358493","title":"Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O'Brien","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe first literary biography of Tim O'Brien, the preeminent American writer of the war in Vietnam and one of the best writers of his generation, drawing on never-before-seen materials and original interviews.\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\"Vietnam made me a writer.\" --Tim O'Brien\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Featuring over one hundred interviews with family, friends, peers, and others--not to mention countless exchanges with Tim O'Brien himself--\u003ci\u003ePeace is a Shy Thing\u003c\/i\u003e provides a nearly day-by-day, gripping account of O'Brien's thirteen months as an infantryman in Vietnam and gives equal diligence to reconstructing O'Brien's writing process. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e This meticulously researched biography explores the life and journey that turned O'Brien into a literary icon and a household name. It includes an unpublished short story about O'Brien from a college girlfriend, documentation of his comical involvement with the \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e's coverage of Watergate, and a 1989 attic exchange between American and Vietnamese writers on the eve of the publication of O'Brien's most beloved book, \u003ci\u003eThe Things They Carried\u003c\/i\u003e, years before the two countries normalized relations. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003ePeace is a Shy Thing\u003c\/i\u003e is as much a history of the era as it is a story of O'Brien's life, from his small-town midwestern mid-century childhood, to winning the National Book Award and his status as literary elder statesman. A story which Vernon, a combat veteran of the Persian Gulf War and a literary scholar trained by officers and professors of the Vietnam era, is uniquely suited to tell.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom Prairie Village, Kansas, ALEX VERNON graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (the only literature major in his class of over a thousand), served in combat as a tank platoon leader in the Persian Gulf War, and earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The recipient of an Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Book Award and a National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship, he is the M.E. \u0026amp; Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of English at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"St. Martin's Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51298725691666,"sku":"9781250358493","price":26.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_7ae5fcf6-a3eb-428b-9eae-f1e46894ff69.jpg?v=1747832869","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/peace-is-a-shy-thing-the-life-and-art-of-tim-obrien-9781250358493","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}