A Trauma Artist : Tim O'Brien and Fiction of Vietnam

Preface ix Introduction. Vietnam as Figure and Symptom: ``We've All Been There'' xiii A Trauma Artist xviii The Fiction of Vietnam xxiv Fabricating Trauma 1(39) ``The Vietnam in Me'' 1(4) O'Brien's Endless War 5(4) Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Vietnam 9(7) PTSD and Writing 16(7) O'Brien's Art of Trauma 23(10) Writing Beyond Vietnam 33(7) A Bad War 40(29) Origins of If I Die in a Combat Zone 40(3) Fictionalized Testimony 43(4) O'Brien's Self-Representation: Soldier Versus Writer 47(10) Moral Combat 57(8) Combat zone as Source for a Career 65(4) The Old Man and the Pond 69(39) Self-Displacement in Northern Lights 69(6) Literary Mimicry: Realism, Symbolism, Allegory 75(8) Harvey's Story: Vietnam as Tragicomedy 83(9) Paul's Story: The Feminization of Virtue 92(13) Novel Revisions 105(3) A Soldier's Dream 108(36) The Re-covering of Trauma: Paul Berlin as Tim O'Brien 108(1) Cacciato: From Short Stories to Trauma Narrative 109(5) ``Going After Cacciato'': From Catalog to Breakdown 114(8) Paul Berlin: From Breakdown to Trauma Writing 122(9) The Quest for Cacciato: Fantasy and the Burial of the Dead 131(10) The Observation Post: Retraumatization and Endless Fantasy 141(3) The Bombs Are Real 144(33) An Ambitious Failure? 144(2) The Traumatization of William Cowling 146(8) Parabolic Fiction: Mutual Assured Destruction and Civil Defense 154(9) The Nuclear Age and Vietnam 163(7) The Failure of William Cowling 170(7) True War Stories 177(39) Recirculated Trauma, Endless Fiction 177(1) The Things They Carried as Self-Revision 178(9) ``How to Tell a True War Story'': Misreading Tim O'Brien 187(9) Other Refabrications of Trauma 196(15) ``The Lives of the Dead'' Bringing Them Back Alive 211(5) The People We Kill 216(43) Trauma, Tragedy, National Disgrace 216(3) Metaficational Investigations 219(5) The Breakdown of John Wade 224(14) Tragic Revisions 238(8) John Wade as Paradigm and Persona: Tim O'Brien's Trauma 246(6) Psychobiography, History, and Fiction 252(7) Guys Just Want to Have Fun 259(36) Vietnam and the Age of Clinton 259(5) A Dictionary of Love 264(8) In Defense of Thomas Chippering 272(7) PTSD as Comedy/Vietnam as Parody 279(8) Saving Tim O'Brien: Tomacat in Love as Countertherapy 287(8) Conclusion. A Trauma Artist 295(18) Posttraumatic Nation 295(4) Academic Polemics 299(6) Responsible Dreams 305(8) Appendix. Diagnostic Criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, DSM-IV 313(2) Notes 315(10) References 325(12) Index 337