Peace Is a Shy Thing by Alex Vernon

Publisher's description: The 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."Vietnam made me a writer." ―Tim O'BrienFeaturing over one hundred interviews with family, friends, peers, and others―not to mention countless exchanges with Tim O'Brien himself―Peace is a Shy Thing 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.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 It includes an unpublished short story about O'Brien from a college girlfriend, documentation of his comical involvement with the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate, and a 1989 attic exchange between American and Vietnamese writers on the eve of the public