America Fantastica
A Novel
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3.7 • 45 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
“O’Brien’s first novel in two decades was well worth the wait. . . . In the age of ‘mythomania,’ O’Brien takes aim at the lies that power this country, and how and why they sustain us. America Fantastica peers straight into the dark heart of the American psyche, and it's unafraid of the comedy and tragedy staring back.” — Esquire, Best Books of the Fall
An American Master returns: the author of The Things They Carried delivers his first new novel in two decades, a brilliant and rollicking odyssey, in which a bank robbery sparks “a satirical romp through a country plagued by deceit” (Kirkus, starred review)
At 11:34 a.m. one Saturday in August 2019, Boyd Halverson strode into Community National Bank in Northern California.
“How much is on hand, would you say?” he asked the teller. “I’ll want it all.”
“You’re robbing me?”
He revealed a Temptation .38 Special.
The teller, a diminutive redhead named Angie Bing, collected eighty-one thousand dollars.
Boyd stuffed the cash into a paper grocery bag.
“I’m sorry about this,” he said, “but I’ll have to ask you to take a ride with me.”
So begins the adventure of Boyd Halverson—star journalist turned notorious online disinformation troll turned JCPenney manager—and his irrepressible hostage, Angie Bing. Haunted by his past and weary of his present, Boyd has one goal before the authorities catch up with him: settle a score with the man who destroyed his life. By Monday the pair reach Mexico; by winter, they are in a lakefront mansion in Minnesota. On their trail are hitmen, jealous lovers, ex-cons, an heiress, a billionaire shipping tycoon, a three-tour veteran of Iraq, and the ghosts of Boyd’s past. Everyone, it seems, except the police.
In the tradition of Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain, America Fantastica delivers a biting, witty, and entertaining story about the causes and costs of outlandish fantasy, while also marking the triumphant return of an essential voice in American letters. And at the heart of the novel, amid a teeming cast of characters, readers will delight in the tug-of-war between two memorable and iconic human beings—the exuberant savior-of-souls Angie Bing and the penitent but compulsive liar Boyd Halverson. Just as Tim O’Brien’s modern classic, The Things They Carried, so brilliantly reflected the unromantic truth of war, America Fantastica puts a mirror to a nation and a time that has become dangerously unmoored from truth and greedy for delusion.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hunter S. Thompson meets Sacha Baron Cohen in this amusing and alarming road trip to the center of America's mendacious heart. In what O'Brien has claimed will be his final novel, the National Book Award winner (The Things They Carried) chronicles the downward spiral of former foreign correspondent Boyd Halverson. A long-ago Pulitzer Prize nominee, Boyd has seen his life torpedoed by his inflated résumé, which was leaked to the press by his billionaire ex–father-in-law, Jim Dooney, whose murderous corporate skullduggery Boyd was on the brink of exposing. After moldering for almost a decade while managing a JC Penney in fictitious Fulda, Calif., and plotting his revenge against Dooney, Boyd impulsively robs a nearby bank for $81,000 and abducts a none too reluctant young evangelical teller named Angie Bing. Shortly after setting off for Mexico, Boyd discovers he's in over his head: not only because Angie's disappearance has sent her jealous bozo of a fiancé on their trail, but also because the husband-and-wife bank owners, Douglas and Lois Cutterby, have brainstormed their own plan for recovering the stolen cash, since reporting the robbery through official channels would reveal their flagrant embezzlement. Then Dooney catches wind of Boyd's long-stewing revenge scheme, triggering additional pursuit by psychopathic corporate muscle—and a full Fargo's worth of darkly comic and intermittently deadly complications. Though the antic and off-color proceedings sometimes drag, particularly during some of Angie's extended sermonizing, O'Brien keeps everything afloat on a cloud of pure gonzo bliss. If this is indeed the author's valedictory novel, he's bowing out with a star-spangled bang.
Customer Reviews
I really wanted to like it
A long time ago I read one of the author’s early books, Going After Cacciato, and the style and story stuck with me. The writer had a lot to say about Vietnam. Now he thinks he has a lot to say about Trump and dishonesty and Covid. But he doesn’t. Unfortunately, this is just an old man’s depressing rant. I stuck with it to see where he was going. It didn’t end. It just stopped. Made it feel like he was intentionally depressing. Can’t recommend it.