An Illness Caused by Youth: from The Father of All Things

Veteran Jack Bissell only deepened the abyss between him and his son Tom when he talked about the Vietnam war. But, when a magazine editor sends the two back to Vietnam for a story, Tom reopens the conversation and confronts his father’s past and the man that had seemed impossibly remote. Part history, memoir, and travelogue, Tom Bissell’s is a haunting, riveting exploration of the war’s personal, political, and cultural impact from the perspective of the generation that grew up in the wake of the conflict and a wise reckoning of the bond forged between fathers and sons.   A Vintage Shorts Vietnam Selection. An ebook short.