The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam

by Tom Bissell

In April 1975, as Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army, John Bissell, a former Marine officer living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, was glued to his television. Struggling to save his marriage, raise his sons, and live with his memories of the war in Vietnam, Bissell found himself racked with anguish and horror as his country abandoned a cause for which so many of his friends had died.

Opening with a gripping account of the chaotic and brutal last month of the war, The Father of All Things is Tom Bissell’s powerful reckoning with the Vietnam War and its impact on his father, his country, and Vietnam itself. Through him we learn what it was like to grow up with a gruff but oddly tender veteran father who would wake his children in the middle of the night when the memories got too painful. Bissell also explores the many debates about the war, from whether it was winnable to Ho Chi Minh’s motivations to why America’s leaders lied so often. Above all, he shows how the war has continued to influence American views on foreign policy more than thirty years later.

At the heart of this book is John and Tom Bissell’s unforgettable journey back to Vietnam. As they travel the country and talk to Vietnamese veterans, we relive the war as John Bissell experienced it, visit the site of his near-fatal wounding, and hear him explain how Vietnam shaped him and so many of his generation.

This is the first major book about the war by an author who grew up after the fall of Saigon. It is a fascinating, all-too-relevant work about the American character–and about war itself. It is also a wise and moving book about fathers, sons, and the universal desire to understand who our parents were before they became our parents.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War, Memoir, Biography, Travel, Military Fiction

407 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2007

About the author

Tom Bissell (born 1974) is a journalist, critic, and fiction writer.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Beatrice Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super dense but such a goodddd book. Loved the perspective and writing style.

[Margot · Rating 2 out of 5]

I learned a lot more about the history of the end of the Vietnam War than I knew before, but the book was oddly (and I thought jarringly) constructed. The interweaving of very detailed history with personal story was not fully successful, especially in the first part of the book. And the very final section (brief personal testimonies from the children of Vietnam War vets, from both sides), which I found to be one of the most interesting parts of the book, was too short and, structurally speaking, just tacked on.

The author has clearly struggled, and continues to struggle, with his relationship with his father, and the ways in which his father's war experience shaped that relationship. My suggestion to him is, Don't end your therapy just yet. You've made progress, but there's still work to do.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a history fan, you need to read this book. Initially picked up because it was on sale, I was absolutely blown away. i have attempted in the past to read books about the causes and effects of Vietnam, but they always were too dry. This book tells the story of the war through the experience of a son and his veteran father returning to Vietnam. The author does a great job balancing the autobiographical narrative and his descriptions of the war, as well as tying the two together. His descriptions and distillations of the issues, strategies, and mistakes were very easily understood, and provide great insight. Because of this, I now feel I have a much better base to try those heavier book son Vietnam again.

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just couldn't get through this one. The author goes back and forth between the history of the end of the vietnam war and what he imagines the actons of his father to be at that time. What I read of it was okay I realized picking it up to read it was starting to feel like an assignment not something I wanted to do. Maybe it's just me and I will finish it one day when I am more ready for this book.

[Neddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.66. The parts about the author and his father were not great, but the straight history was very interesting

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely essential reading for anyone whose father served in Vietnam.

[Steve Woods · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a great disappointment to me. The relationship between Vietnam veteran's and their children is a subject that is complex and densely emotionally charged; full of pathos, tragedy and sometimes transcendence. It is one well worth exploring. This book was little more than a miss mash of opinion informed by second hand sources and a travelogue. It barely touches the heart of the matter; bland at best banal at worst. Not really worth the price f admission.

[Bob Schmitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

My wife and I are leaving for a 3 week trip to Vietnam tomorrow and this book was recommended to me by a friend of hers. It was a mix of a memoir, travel guide, father-son story and history of Vietnam framed around a trip the liberal author son takes with his dad a Marine Vietnam vet. The father has been haunted by his experience there in 1965 which contributed to his drinking an divorce and the son is interested in finding out about and helping heal his dad. The writing is casual, touching, profound and funny. It was full of interesting tidbits of history that were unknown to me especially about the Vietcong and N. Vietnamese during the "American War" from material available after the renewing of relations between the US and Vietnam. It discusses a lot of the internal politics of the North and South as well as the US, France, China and Russia. I did not realize the brutality of the French colonization and exploitation of country. The specifics of the fall of the South and the aftermath of the reunification are discussed. Mai Lai is discussed in interesting detail.

Towards the end of the book the author muses that the US "won" in Korea and now North Korea is a militaristic, unstable, hellhole of a country with a nuclear bomb while we "lost" in Vietnam which is now peaceful, increasingly prosperous and not bothering anyone. (And in the meantime Vietnam invaded Cambodia and deposed Pot Pol ending that monstrous genocide, occupying that country for 11 years loosing thousands of soldiers and we refused to recognize them in favor of the Khmer Rouge!

I came away with having read a lovely story learned some good words like quidnuncs (http://dictionary.reference.com/brows...) and lycanthropic (http://dictionary.reference.com/brows... the dictionary here doesn't recognize,and learned once again that the world is just very complicated. No simple explanation will do.

I was interested to learn that the "American War" is ancient history to most Vietnamese most of whom are less than 25yo and that it is now a lovely place to visit. I hope so.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book largely because I'll be going to Vietnam shortly. Tom Bissell has an amazing writing style and knows how to improbably place some of the funnier one-liners in his historical commentary. His interpretation of seemingly unimportant facts can lead to some interesting insights:

"Today Hanoi really DID have a Hilton - called, naturally, the Hanoi Hilton. What was strange was how little comment such ironies elicited from the Vietnamese themselves. Hien, for instance, saw nothing even slightly funny about an actual Hanoi Hilton or a billboard advertising the company once helmed by a man who, in living memory, had ordered bombs dropped on Vietnam. This strange vietnamese mixture of obliviousness and shamelessness was not new. At one point during the war, Saigon's Ministry of Tourism had sponsored a campaign that attempted to lure unarmed visitors to Vietnam. The slogan? ' Vietnam-you've heard about it, now come see it.'"

This book erred for me on the side of too much history lesson, not enough of the above cultural interpretation or the discussion and discovery about the author's own relationship with his father. As I mentioned, going to Vietnam very shortly made some of the history more interesting to me, but if I was really after pure history, I'd read something else. I think Tom Bissell still needs to balance his intense interest in other countries and histories with his desire to produce an engaging novel. He has great skill interpreting history just as he does with sentence construction, humorous plot weaving, and impressive vocabulary, but all these things don't always come together for him.

[Tripp · Rating 5 out of 5]

As part of Citizen Reader's Book Menage, I read Tom Bissell's The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam. Bissell addresses the first question I had about this book in the opening sentences of the book. Do we really need yet another book on Vietnam? Bissell says that he has grown up with the war because of how it changed and affected his father. Although the book centers on a trip to Vietnam that Bissell takes with his father, it is also a book with rich analysis of the war.

The analysis may be too much for some people. He spends pages and pages going over certain periods like the evacuation of Saigon, the Tet offensive and the My Lai massacre. I found that Bissell was remarkably even-handed. Although he leans left and his father constantly calls him my son, the communist, (depsite Bissell having written about the disastrous communist rule of Central Asia), he is just as prone to point out the wrongs of the Vietnamese as he is the wrongs of the United States in the war. He opposes the war, but he does not believe the North or the NLF were the good guys.

The sections of the book that deal with the father son relationship are touching and often sad. Bissell was hoping to find and understand the happy man who went to Vietnam, only to be replaced by a quiet withdrawn man. It seems that father and son become a little closer than they were before hand, but there is no great epiphany or reconciliation in the book. I was left hoping that when they got back to the United States, they managed to engage deeper, but it wasn't clear what would happen.

All in all, a very good book.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, in many ways. The history of the war is deep and broad, and it is clear that the author spent a great deal of time researching the war, for reasons that are very personal. I have a lot of respect for him, and for his father, for making the journey to Vietnam, and for asking themselves hard questions while they were doing it. That being said, the author does not seem to have done much reading about Vietnamese culture, or about orientalism or racism. He regularly makes snide comments about the spiritual beliefs of the Vietnamese, especially their experience of ghosts, and he makes racist remarks about the romantic attraction between American men and Vietnamese women that sound more like imperialist fantasy than anything else. To support such statements, he quotes passages from The Quiet American, which is a lovely novel, but one that clearly draws on the racial conceptions of the 1950's. I appreciate the complicated nature of real feelings, and I don't expect an American traveler in Vietnam to have only happy, non-imperialist reactions to the experience, but his lack of self-analysis in somewhat disturbing. He even admits, in the book, that he is not interested in learning the Vietnamese language, because he is primarily there to immerse himself in the war. One cannot read those works without thinking that this has always been precisely the problem with the American presence in Vietnam.

[Eric Piotrowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Bissell is a tremendous writer. I first learned of his existence through his video-games book Extra Lives. More than anything, I was impressed by his ability to criticize a game's faults, reward its successes, and avoid hyperbole, demonization, and hagiography. So I was very keen to see how he would approach the contentious topic of Vietnam.

I am woefully ignorant about that conflict, and I found this book to be a superb introduction. Intensely personal, it follows a trip Bissell took to Vietnam with his father. But woven around that memoir is a careful exploration of the key issues surrounding Vietnamese communism, anti-communist efforts in the region, and US involvement. Again, the author displays incredible intellectual honesty -- and dexterity, when necessary -- in giving each truth its due without neglecting blame or honor.

I've been lucky indeed to speak and correspond with Mr. Bissell. I'm amazed that a writer of his talent and profundity is kind and receptive enough to write back over and over when I email him questions and comments. Read him! Read his stuff now!

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read lots of Vietname books, both fiction and non-fiction, and while this wasn't my favorite, it definitely belongs in the canon. Of course, I'm biased, since I spend lots of time kicking Tom's butt in video games, but he really does write beautifully, and his style blossoms in this book. Tom also did an amount of research that would put any doctoral student to shame, and perhaps even more impressive--and I say this as someone who wrote a 500-page dissertation based primarily on secondary sources--is his ability to cleanly integrate the research into his narrative.

On the down side, there are a couple of jarring stylistic disjunctures, and I definitely could have done without the brief but distracting disquisition on the appeal of Vietnamese women, but aside from this the book works very well as a whole, and the combination of emotional intensity and self-deprecation that endears Tom to friends and readers alike is present throughout.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you can get a hold of it, read Tom Bissell's article, "War Wounds," in the December 2004 issue of Harper's Magazine. It has all the best bits of this book, distilled into 4 or so tightly written pages. The book has moments of genuine insight or emotion, but they get overwhelmed by Bissell's need to add so much historical context to his personal journey with his father. If I wanted to read an hour-by-hour account of the fall of Saigon, I would pick up a straight-forward nonfiction history book. Bissell doesn't seem to realize that it's his complex character of a father and their fascinating relationship that makes his book unique--not his ability to quote, at great length, other people's research about the Vietnam War. He's a very talented writer, but this book could have been half as long.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this book to do a review for the Oral History Review- and while it could be disputed as lacking the neutraility of a good piece of oral history writing, I think it would waste my breath. This story is true to its title- a journalist son is given the opportunity to travel to Vietnam with his veteran father. Bissell provides social commentary and reflects on the altogether outrageous political dealings during the Vietnam era. More importantly, he and his father experience intense emotions about their relationship, their shared life experiences, and the war. The treasure of this book is the last chapter, where readers will find anonymous statements from Children of the War- very insightful and quite a range of war experiences.

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really two books in one. One part is the authors synthesis of certain aspects of the Vietnam War. If one is unfamiliar with the history, it is a good introduction. However, if you already know the history, you can skim right past those sections.

The second part is the story of the author and his father's (a Vietnam veteran) trip back to Vietnam. I throughly enjoyed this part of the book. The conversations between father and son were very touching -- so honest and at times very raw. The final part of the book contains stories from other children of Vietnam veterans (US and Vietnamiese). I wish there was more to this section and less history. Overall, I enjoyed the book, but as the son of a vet, I may be a bit biased.

[Hulananni · Rating 2 out of 5]

I learned that I must go to the 'right' places when visiting Viet Nam (five times) because I've not experienced the begging, pushing, not-so-nice things that this father and son experienced.

Good history writing but the personal side reminds me of my mother-in-law asking (often) why my husband doesn't talk about his experiences as a young Marine in the Chu Lai area. He doesn't but he loves visiting Viet Nam and we've been to Chu Lai.

For anyone who hasn't been...some of the tales of unpleasant experiences in the cities and with local inhabitants could put one off from making a visit to one of the world's loveliest places with people who welcome Americans. Most you meet were not even born when the American War happened.

[Allan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderfully structured exploration of themes of war, fatherhood, and the space between people. Bissell's artful intertwining of the stories of his parents' failing marriage, the fall of Saigon and his own return with his father to a deeply changed Vietnam some 30 years after the war is not simply effective; it should daunt and inspire anyone wishing to write nonfiction on any topic. The personal and the political are on display here, with family memories drawn out along with a sort of crash-course expose of how the war was fought and lost. The book to a degree even serves as a travelogue, and the annotated bibliography is an excellent guide to some of the best reading on many aspects of Vietnam--the war and the land.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book shines when discussing the effect Vietnam war had on the American psyche, although, distinct from previous works, the effect talked about here focuses on the younger generation who grew up in the shadow of their father's struggle with Vietnam memories. Alex Garland made a similar, albeit less serious, point in The Beach. The historical accounts I thought were somewhat of a weakness, but the contemporary reminiscences, the examination of the father-son relationship, and the book's final 20 pages are very strong and moving.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent writer who doesn't try to milk from the relationship with his father what isn't there. No Hollywood ending, but educational on both their parts. Especially educational for me to return to those years that I've ignored of Vietnam's horrors and what the vets returned to after fighting with too few of the right weapons against a country that, after all, was the only one to beat Genghis Khan in ancient history and the Chinese in recent history. Highly recommended as a book written with a clear, unaffected, intelligent without being intellectual voice.

[Pam Lindholm-levy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this on CD, mostly in my car. I liked the personal aspects of the book (I took a class from the writer), especially the father's history. Bissell's history of the Viet Nam war was hard to follow at the same time I was driving on I-5, but the parts I could pay strict attention to taught me things about that war I never knew, or took the trouble to know. The individual fall out and the bigger picture of the current wars will be in the same pattern for those of us at home who read a book like this and realize like me, they weren't paying attention.

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am still plowing through this books slowly b/c I find myself rereading many parts of it b/c I am not very knowledgeable on the Vietnam War.
I love the idea that this book was written by someone from my generation. Besides giving an awesome overview of parts of the war and the exit from Saigon, the author's relationship with his father adds a perspective that is invaluable.
I will update this when I finally finish the book!

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, in truth I did not quite finish it before I accidentally left this library book in New Jersey over the weekend. But I had read 9/10ths of it by then. Has anyone else seen Little Dieter Needs to Fly? Taken together the book and the documentary complement each other quite well. The emotion in this book is so complex that I cannot do justice to it in this short review. Beatiful writing Tom.

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not expect this book to focus so much on Vietnam War history. I blame the NPR interview that focused on the part that is interesting to me, the growth of understanding in a difficult father-son relationship. I did learn a lot from the history parts, and I did enjoy the parts that were more relationship oriented. Overall, I did not enjoy this book but I must admit that it was exceptionally well written, well researched, and well presented.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one dragged a bit in the middle. The idea appeals to me - son is brought up in a stressed out home. Dad is a Vietnam vet and struggles upon coming home. Relationships not so great. Cut to 20 years later, son is now a writer and takes his father on a trip to Vietnam. Enjoyed the history of the war, liked the father-son scenes. The last part of the book (the final 10%) did not work at all for me, otherwise this was a 4-star offering.

[Peter Helff]

Just underway with this. Read an article about Tom Bissel in the latest issuce of "Poets & Writers" and the book caught my eye. It's a travelogue of a man and his father, and I thought it might help give me inspiration to write a similar tale when I'm finished writing my fantasy novel. I'll keep you posted.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a feat this book is. It took me a while to get through it, in part due to it being a dense historical account of the war and in part my frustrating inability to finish books, but it was well worth it. Tom Bissell is a courageous and detail-oriented writer (every other page has a custom header describing the contents).

[Lou · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to read this one because of a good review in the Wall Street Journal. I thought it might bring some insight to my own father's experience in Vietnam. Interesting read about a terrible US experience.

[Dennis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't care for the way the book was laid out.
The author was speaking for his father, and his feelings. Statistics and Political information to me got in the way. At times I felt like I was reading a chronological account of the Vietnam War.

[Rosemary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very detailed account of the VietNam ward-too detailed sometimes but maybe necessary.. Many passages remind of the war we're in now; poorly planned, poorly equipped and government dishonesty.