American War
A Novel
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4.3 • 135 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
A Globe and Mail Best Book
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Quill & Quire Best Book of 2017
An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle -- a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.
Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, that unmanned drones fill the sky. And when her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she quickly begins to be shaped by her particular time and place until, finally, through the influence of a mysterious functionary, she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. Telling her story is her nephew, Benjamin Chestnut, born during war as one of the Miraculous Generation and now an old man confronting the dark secret of his past -- his family's role in the conflict and, in particular, that of his aunt, a woman who saved his life while destroying untold others.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In the near future, fossil fuel is outlawed, the seas rise catastrophically, and the U.S. North and South are engaged in bloody conflict. American War is a chilling allegory of nationalism and blood thirst, as seen through the eyes of Sarat, an orphaned Louisiana-born girl who becomes radicalized in a refugee camp in Tennessee. Omar El Akkad writes Sarat convincingly from the ages of six to middle age, covering a wide swath of emotional ground in this gripping dystopian novel. An Egyptian-born investigative journalist, El Akkad skillfully explores how loyalty, power, and revenge motivate those affected by war.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
El Akkad's debut novel transports us to a terrifyingly plausible future in which the clash between red states and blue has become deadly and the president has been murdered over a contentious fossil fuels bill. In 2074, Sarah T. Chestnut called Sarat comes of age in the neutral state of Louisiana, where she is slowly drawn into the conflict after the death of her father, performing guerrilla operations for the South. Soon she is enmeshed in a resistance movement masterminded by the Dixie militants operating along the Tennessee River, venturing into quarantined South Carolina battlegrounds and Georgia shantytowns alongside spies, assassins, and revolutionaries, like the commanding Adam Bragg and his Salt Lake Boys. Sarat finds brief happiness with Layla, a displaced bar owner from Valdosta, Georgia, but this is only the beginning of Sarat's war, as she is interred in the nightmarish Camp Saturday before being exiled in the wake of a devastating plague. Now an old and broken woman, Sarat must seek redemption in the wreckage of the New World. Part family chronicle, part apocalyptic fable, American War is a vivid narrative of a country collapsing in on itself, where political loyalties hardly matter given the ferocity of both sides and the unrelenting violence that swallows whole bloodlines and erodes any capacity for mercy or reason. This is a very dark read; El Akkad creates a world all too familiar in its grisly realism.
Customer Reviews
Riveting
An amazing read. Troubling and plausible. Gave me sleepless nights. Writing is crisp. Characters well developed. Essential reading today.
Riveting page turner
Of all five books for Canada Reads Debate, this, my least favourite in anticipation, has become my very favourite read of all five excellent books. All have the capacity to open our eyes, but this one opened my eyes and my heart......
American Dud
Was very disappointed with this story, after listening to all that hype it got on CBC radio and making it to #2 on Canada Reads.
Bland. Not engaging.