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Herr went to Vietnam for Esquire in 1967 with no assignment, no deadline and no obligation to file anything, carried a notebook for two years writing down what soldiers said, and then took the best part of a decade to turn it into a book. Dispatches (Knopf, 1977) is the result: Khe Sanh, the Tet Offensive, helicopters, rock music, drugs, and men of nineteen talking in a register no war book had printed before. John le Carré called it the best book he had ever read on men and war in our time, and it is still the one every later war correspondent is measured against. Herr also said, repeatedly and without apparent guilt, that a lot of it is fictional: he never thought of it as journalism, it was published as a novel in France, very few lines were literally invented but many were put into the mouths of composite characters, and sometimes he tells a story as if he was present when he was not. He went on to write the narration for Apocalypse Now and to co-write Full Metal Jacket with Stanley Kubrick, then published very little and lived quietly in upstate New York until his death in 2016. The ten below are chosen on the war, the prose, and the question of what a reporter is allowed to make up.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · War reporting · New Journalism · Vietnam, 1967–69 · Updated September 2026
Quick answer
If you love Michael Herr, the closest match is Tim O'Brien, who fought in Vietnam and wrote a book that is openly half-invented and argues that this is the only way to tell a true war story. Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer are the New Journalists he worked beside. Dexter Filkins and Sebastian Junger are the modern inheritors, and Karl Marlantes the soldier's own version. Ryszard Kapuściński raises the same question about invention. And Mark Bowden is the argument against.
10 authors like Michael Herr
Where to start if you loved Michael Herr
If you want the closest match, read Tim O'Brien.
The Things They Carried. Half invented, on purpose, and it says so.
If you want the movement he belonged to, read Tom Wolfe.
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The novel's toolkit, applied to real people.
If you want the same job now, read Dexter Filkins.
The Forever War. Fragments from Afghanistan and Iraq, and no composites.
If you want it from inside the uniform, read Karl Marlantes.
Matterhorn. A hill taken, abandoned and taken again, by a Marine who was there.
If you want the argument against him, read Mark Bowden.
Hue 1968. The same battle, with every line sourced.
If you want more non-fiction of this kind
My shelf of the best non-fiction has the rest.
Frequently asked questions about authors like Michael Herr
Who should I read if I love Michael Herr?
Tim O'Brien is the closest — the same war, and a book that makes Herr's method into an argument. Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer are the New Journalists he named as his own tradition. Dexter Filkins and Sebastian Junger are the modern inheritors, one in fragments and one embedded for a year, and Karl Marlantes writes it from inside the uniform. Ryszard Kapuściński raises the same question about invention, less honestly. Ernest Hemingway is the prose he is measured against, and Mark Bowden is the argument against.
Is Dispatches true?
Partly, and Herr said so himself for decades. In his own words: a lot of Dispatches is fictional, he never thought of it as journalism, it was published as a novel in France, very few lines were literally invented but many were put into the mouths of composite characters, and he sometimes tells a story as if he was present when he was not. He also said a lot of the journalistic material he got wrong. The notebooks and the dialogue were real; the arrangement was not. Readers who learn this often feel betrayed, which he found interesting rather than shameful.
Does that make it less worth reading?
No, but it changes what you are reading it as. Treat Dispatches as the New Journalism it is — Herr named Wolfe, Talese, Thompson and Capote as the company he kept — rather than as a record of specific events, and it remains the most convincing account of what that war felt like that anyone has produced. If you want the same war with every line sourced, Mark Bowden's Hue 1968 covers one of the battles Herr describes, from documents and about fifty Vietnamese interviews.
What else did Michael Herr write?
Very little, and that is part of the story. After Dispatches he wrote the narration for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) and co-wrote Full Metal Jacket (1987) with Stanley Kubrick and Gustav Hasford, which was nominated for an Academy Award for its screenplay. He published Walter Winchell, a novel written in the form of a screenplay, in 1990, and a short memoir of Kubrick in 2000. He spent years in London and then lived quietly in upstate New York until he died in 2016.
How long did Dispatches take to write?
About ten years. Herr was in Vietnam for Esquire from 1967 to 1969 with an unusual arrangement — no deadlines and no requirement to file — and spent the time taking notes and writing down dialogue rather than reporting in the ordinary sense. Some sections appeared as magazine pieces in the early 1970s; the book was not published until 1977. He has spoken about a long, difficult period afterwards, and the gap between the war and the book is visible in how the material is arranged.
Where should I start in the book?
At the beginning, but knowing that it does not proceed chronologically and is not meant to. The six sections run from “Breathing In” through “Hell Sucks”, the long Khe Sanh chapter, “Illumination Rounds” and “Colleagues” to “Breathing Out”. It is 272 pages and most readers find the Khe Sanh section the peak. “Colleagues”, on the other correspondents and photographers, is the one to read if you want to understand why any of them stayed.
Is it hard to read?
Stylistically, yes, and deliberately: the chronology is broken, the slang is unglossed, the prose is closer to a rock lyric than to newspaper reporting, and there is a great deal of drug use and graphic violence. It is also short. Readers who bounce off it usually do so in the first twenty pages, before the method declares itself. If you want war reporting that reads conventionally, start with Bowden or Filkins and come back.
What should I read after Dispatches?
Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, immediately — it is the same war, the same argument about truth, and written by a man who was in the infantry. Then Karl Marlantes for the officer's view, and Mark Bowden's Hue 1968 for the same battle reconstructed from evidence. If it was the prose rather than the war that held you, go to Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson instead.
Footnotes
- Michael Herr in his own words on the fictional aspects of Dispatches, interview with Eric James Schroeder — Americana UK
- Michael Herr's Delhi, with biography and the Schroeder interview quoted at length — Talker of the Town
- Dispatches — summary and critical assessment, eNotes
- Dispatches — review, Vietnam Veterans of America
- Michael Herr — Wikipedia
List last reviewed 9 September 2026.
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“A lot of Dispatches is fictional.”
— Michael Herr, interview with Eric James Schroeder.
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