Reporting Is Not a Holy Word: Tim O’Brien’s Edits in If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home and The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien’s archives, housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin since 2007, contain two letters—one from a friend and one from an editor—that significantly influenced the direction of much of O’Brien’s subsequent writing about war, reportage, and fiction. This essay is a fluid-text analysis of O’Brien's editorial process as he meticulously shaped his message about war, experience, and authenticity in If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home and The Things They Carried. His edits reveal an author who has long contended with the unending battle among aesthetics, expectations, and authority that confronts American war writers.