My Detachment: A Memoir

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Mountains Beyond Mountains presents an “acerbic, honest, moving memoir” (The New York Times Book Review) of his tour of duty in Vietnam.

“With a terrible beauty, [My Detachment] tells an old story—the illusions of war—in a new and compelling way.”—USA Today

“Gripping . . . remarkable . . . poignant . . . perfectly rendered by one of our most original writers.”—The Boston Globe

My Detachment is a war story like none you have ever read before, an unromanticized portrait of a young man coming of age in the controversial war that defined a generation. Master storyteller Tracy Kidder reflects on his service in Vietnam, looking back at himself from across three and a half decades and confessions how, as a young lieutenant, he sought to borrow from the tragedy around him and to imagine himself a romantic hero.

Unrelentingly honest, rueful, and revealing, My Detachment gives us war without heroism, while preserving those rare moments of redeeming grace in the midst of lunacy and danger. The officers and soldiers of My Detachment are not the sort of people who appear in war movies—they are the ones who appear only in war, and they are unforgettable.

A CHICAGO TRIBUNE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR