"...We all perform vanishing tricks, effacing history, locking up our lives and slipping day by day into the shadows (301)." Reality is relative to the observer; beings so, history is what one makes it. The main character in In the Lake of the Woods is a man named John Wade; the reader knows he is a lawyer, a politician and a Vietnam War vet. He and his wife, Kathy, are vacationing in a cabin by a lake to get over a terrible loss in an election after some information about his past in the war surfaced. Some how, his wife disappears. Later, Wade runs away, having nothing to stay around for; his wife mysteriously vanishes, he is suspected for murder and his political career is over. The book is written to look as a documentary of these events, containing chapters of history, evidence, and hypothesizes about Kathy's whereabouts. Also, the book has no ending, attempting to mimic life; there is no neat and sugary "The End". All this is a ploy to make this fictitious novel more real and convincing in order to show that facts are only lies that one believes; or that nothing is a fact. Throughout In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O'Brien is making that point by including information on the Vi

Another man believes that babies were going to attack him and that was why he killed them. Some men have even blocked out the memory of it all together. Even though Wade doesn't exist, he forced himself to believe he was involved. This shows that the event changes from person to person, proving O'Brien's theory.

Tim O'Brien incorporates certain things about the war that prove his case that facts depend on the observer. In a war, commands are often delayed, ignored or not delivered at all, causing massive problems and result in mistakes. The Vietnam War is no different from any other. In this book we are given the example of the My Lai Massacre. On March 16, 1968 Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, was given orders by Lt. William Calley to destroy the village of My Lai. Calley believed the people of My Lai were all Viet Cong and/or Viet Cong supporters; to him, that was the truth. When William Calley was court-martialed, in his testimony he said:

Q: what do you mean you weren't discriminating?

O'Brien, Tim. In the Lake of the Woods. New York City:

etnam War, including the author's comments and Wade's behavior.

Some common words found in the essay are:
William Calley, PFC Weatherby, Tim O'Brien, Vietnam War, Lake Woods, John Wade, Wade Wade, Sorcerer Sorcerer, John Kathy, Kathy Wade, lake woods, tim o'brien, vietnam war, john wade, viet cong, sir enemy, front mirror, what's true, william calley, life dream,
Approximate Word count = 1200
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)