My Detachment - by Tracy Kidder (Paperback)

About the Book

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Tracy Kidder, author of "The Soul of a New Machine," writes for the first time about himself in an astonishingly honest, comic, and moving memoir of the Vietnam War.

Book Synopsis

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

Review Quotes

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

"[An] acerbic, honest, moving memoir . . . [The] prose is drawn so tight it seems to shimmer under the reader's gaze."--The New York Times Book Review

"At once hilarious and sad, sweet and distressing, a compelling, candid, and poignantly comic portrait."--Jonathan Harr, author of The Lost Painting and A Civil Action

"You'd be hard pressed to find a better book, fiction or otherwise, about the challenges of retaining one's humanity amid the chaos and carnage of war."--The Washington Post Book World

"Gripping . . . remarkable . . . a poignant memoir . . . perfectly rendered by one of our most original writers."--The Boston Globe

"Tweaking multiple genres, Tracy Kidder has written a war story without violence. . . . [Full of] candor and humor."--The Village Voice

"Muted, ironic, thoughtful, My Detachment is a meditation in a time of war--and a candid depiction of how the misdirections of youth can shape and haunt a life."--San Jose Mercury News

"Kidder's great talent ever since his Pulitzer-winning The Soul of a New Machine has been his ability to take ordinary details and give them the shape, metaphors, and rhythms of a novel. . . . [The] book works because he's so candid about his insecurities, and how they played into his need to deceive others (and himself) about his role in Vietnam."--Chicago Sun-Times

"In Kidder's world, the absurdities and dark comedy of war mix with danger and the solace of comradeship. The result is a breezy and concise tale, the work of a master craftsman. Don't miss it."--Houston Chronicle

About the Author

Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and the University of Iowa. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. He is the author of Rough Sleepers, A Truck Full of Money, Good Prose (with Richard Todd), Strength in What Remains, My Detachment, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Home Town, Old Friends, Among Schoolchildren, House, and The Soul of a New Machine. Kidder passed away in 2026.