Critical Praise

"O'Brien's clean, incantatory prose always hovers on the edge of dream.... No one writes better about the fear and homesickness of a boy adrift amid what he cannot understand, be it combat or love. "

——Time

"This remarkable book is about the slipperiness of truth, the weight of forgetting, and the way two people disappear into themselves, and, ultimately, into the Lake of the Woods. "

——The New Yorker

"An unrelenting exploration of the darkest recesses of the human heart and psyche. O'Brien's approach is bold, ambitious, and intriguing. "

——Houston Chronicle

" A risky, ambitious, perceptive, engaging, and troubling novel...a major attempt to come to grips with the causes and consequences of the late 20th century's unquenchable appetite for violence, both domestic and foreign. "

——Chicago Tribune

"A relentless work full of white heat and dark possibility. "

——The Boston Globe

"At bottom, this is a tale about the moral effects of suppressing a true story, about the abuse of history, about what happens to you when you pretend there is no history. "

——The New York Times Book Review

"A memorable mystery story charged with haunting ambiguity...If any American novelist is creating more beautifully written, emotionally harrowing tales than Tim O'Brien, I don't know who it could be. "

——Entertainment Weekly