In this review for The Wall Street Journal, Elliot Ackerman assesses "Dad's Maybe Book," Tim O'Brien's first book in more than fifteen years, a collection of letters and reflections the Vietnam War novelist wrote for his two young sons, Timmy and Tad.

Fatherhood, Mortality, and the "Maybe Book"

Ackerman traces the book's origin to O'Brien's fear that, as an older father, he may not live to see his sons into adulthood, and to his son Tad's suggestion that he approach the project as a "maybe book" he could write incrementally rather than all at once.

War, Hemingway, and the Limits of Genre

Ackerman highlights O'Brien's reflections on Ernest Hemingway's war fiction, arguing that O'Brien, like Hemingway, has never really written about war so much as about the fate of all living things, our shared humanity, a frame Ackerman finds among the book's most compelling passages.

A Closing Chapter, Closest to the Bone

Ackerman calls the collection a fitting close to O'Brien's literary career, one that fills an important gap in understanding how the author of "The Things They Carried" and "In the Lake of the Woods" thinks about his own body of work.

Read the Original Review

This review originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal.

Read “‘Dad’s Maybe Book’ Review: A Veteran of Life” at The Wall Street Journal →