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Omar El Akkad

American War: A Novel Paperback – International Edition, 30 January 2018

by Omar El Akkad (Author)

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Shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction PrizeA Globe and Mail Best BookA New York Times Notable Book of the YearA Quill & Quire Best Book of 2017An 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.

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Product details

Publisher : Emblem Editions (30 January 2018)
Language: : English
Paperback : 432 pages
ISBN-10 : 0771009410
ISBN-13 : 978-0771009419
Dimensions : 13.26 x 2.31 x 20.29 cm

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766 ratings

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‘When I was young, I collected postcards.’

Reviewed in Australia on 3 July 2017

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Thus begins this dystopian novel. It is set in the late 21st century, a civil war breaks out in America over fossil fuels. The North has brought the South under control, and the refugees from the war-torn states of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia (the ‘MAG’) have been herded into the cruelly named ‘Camp Patience’.

‘I belong to what they call the Miraculous Generation: those born in the years between the start of the Second American Civil War in 2074 and its end in 2095.’

The main character is Sarat Chestnut, aged just six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. The story is told by Benjamin Chestnut, her nephew and a member of the ‘Miraculous Generation’, towards the end of his own long life. Benjamin has read his aunt’s diaries, and carries a heavy secret.

‘This isn’t a story about war. It’s about ruin.’

As a six year old, Sarat Chestnut was happy. She knows that oil is outlawed, and she and her family have a tough existence in war-ravaged Louisiana, but at least they are all together. And then her father is killed, and the family is forced into Camp Patience. Sarat, her sister Dana, brother Simon and mother Martina each have different ways of managing life in the Camp.

Sarat fights back. Most of this novel is about Sarat fighting back, about her trials and triumphs. Sarat herself is a larger than life character: physically imposing, indefatigable in her various quests. No spoilers here: this is a novel to immerse yourself in, to think about choices made and consequences.

I picked up this novel and became lost within its pages for the space of a day. I needed to know how it would end. The writing held my attention. Sarat’s story held my attention so completely that I didn’t question (as I usually would) some aspects of the story. And the ending? It works for me. I found this novel engrossing and disturbing.

‘What was safety, anyway, but the sound of a bomb falling on someone else’s home?’

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

One person found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Not worth the time or effort

Reviewed in Australia on 14 March 2019

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We were discussing this at book club and someone else suggested only reading the first 15% and the last 15% to the people who hadn't read it. I wish I could go back in time and take that advice.
Having read all of it: I wish it’d had a better editor - someone really ruthless because it was like the author couldn't decide and so had to pick EVERYTHING at every opportunity. Why focus on one type of torture and its effects on the human condition when we can have them all? So it ended up a discordant mess with zero subtlety. There is also no nuance in any of the characters, nothing relatable. Most of them could have been replaced with attractive lamps and not substantially changed the plot.

The relationships in this are all seriously messed up too. Like, if you're going to have one character accuse another character of rape on the basis of inability to give informed consent (due to medical incapacity) - don't expect me to be okay with you just dumping that on your huge pile of unresolved, never again mentioned things.

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Crazy rat lady

Nothing like Handmaids

Reviewed in Australia on 14 January 2019

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I bought this book as I had read Handmaids Tale and is was apparently like it. It isn’t. It is very different and I found it a little dull

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Noe

Brilliant

Reviewed in Australia on 18 May 2017

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An amazing story of an America at war with itself again in the future. Couldn't put the book down. Amazing

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derek

Four Stars

Reviewed in Australia on 5 June 2017

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Provoking

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KirstyJ

An epic future classic of speculative science fiction!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 May 2018

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I bought American War after it's inclusion on the 2018 Arthur Clarke shortlist for Science Fiction, to be honest it was the least appealing of the six to me initially so I thought I'd tackle it first. I was absolutely gripped.

I'm so glad to have had my expectations blown away, set between the mid 2070's to 2096, this follows a second American civil war that unfolds when southern states vote to leave the union after a bill is passed that aims to eradicate fossil fuels. A friend pointed this out as a potential plot hole when I recommended the book - what about all that southern land they could use for solar panel farms? Well Omar El Akkad's writing addresses this, with Arab states now uniting into a new world power at the forefront of renewable energy, the threads that ignite this civil war run twist more than just dependence on oil but centuries worth of tension, political assassinations and foreign interference that stoke the flames.

Readers will be able to pick out the tensions and attitudes you can observe in present America's 'Democrat vs Republican' media circus that ends up dividing citizens in the book's future timeline. This story revolves around the displacement and refugee status of the Chestnut family amid the start of the war and the slow radicalisation of Sarat Chestnut as the effects of displacement, propaganda and suffering wear the family down.

Akkad's writing shines with his background in journalism and documenting war zones, there is no idealisation in this book but deep mistrust of war, it questions and forces the reader to confront the realities of radicalisation, how young people can be turned into weapons, even when their suffering has come from rebel groups of their own cause. The story is threaded with oral histories of the war between chapters set further into the future in the 2100's when the nation reflects upon it's second devastating civil conflict that add an almost biographical historical element to the book.

I finished the book within a day, I could not put it down and rushed through the last 70 pages when I woke up the next morning. I'd recommend this to any fan of speculative science fiction, I just hope the rest of the shortlist where I learned about this book is as good as American War.

12 people found this helpful

Stephanie Jane (Literary Flits)

Superb!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 March 2020

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I'd like to start my review by thanking Joy at Joyous Reads whose blogged review of American War back in April 2018 encouraged me to add this novel to my TBR - and, almost two years later, I've finally read it! Why on earth did I wait so long? American War is unbelievably good!

American War is one of a select few novels which, for me at least, surpassed the five star rating I have awarded. As I closed the book after reading its final page, I actually had to take a couple of minutes to bring myself back to the present day because I had been so deeply immersed in Sarat's world that it felt more real to me than my own! El Akkad has brilliantly meshed together the realities of refugees' smashed lives in every war ever with a chilling portrait of how such desperation can be manipulated by callous men to create radicalised suicidal human weapons. What makes American War so shocking is that, by imagining America ripped apart by a second civil war, El Akkad's refugees are both Americans themselves and the result of American warfare techniques. This isn't the USA invading foreign nations in South or Central America, or across the Middle East, but the narrative and actions have such an authentic ring to them because I have already seen these ideas in novels such as Red Birds by Mohammed Hanif and The President's Gardens by Muhsin Al-Ramli.

The concept of The South rising again is wonderfully evocative. The American War storyline is told from a point even further into the future than the events we follow so it reads as rich historical fiction even it is actually science fiction. We glimpse as-yet impossible technologies, but the majority of scenes are set on poverty-stricken Southern lands, all-but destroyed by years of war, or within the crowded tent city that is Patience Refugee Camp, so people are struggling to survive with very little, their only highlights being the monthly Chinese aid shipment. I got a sense of a society which had reached affluent success, but which had now lost everything it had achieved - perhaps similar to present-day Syria?

El Akkad has already garnered comparisons with authors such as Cormac McCarthy and, on the strength of his vivid depictions of these grim settings, I would agree that his writing is easily as powerful. I was absolutely steamrollered by American War and will, I think, be enthusiastically recommending this novel to everyone I can find! Superb!

2 people found this helpful

Crofftwerdd

A second civil war, every bit as bitter as the first

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 September 2018

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This is a brilliantly written book, extremely readable which gives a dystopian view of America after the outbreak of a second civil war in 2074. The fission between north and south this time is caused by the refusal of the south to accept restrictions / ban on the use of fossil fuels. The central character, a girl named Sarat has her life shaped by the war and the novel deals with the horrific consequences of her witnessing and being part of yet another senseless conflict. Given that the author wrote this before Trump was elected (or even really seriously considered as a candidate for the presidency), the plot is horribly plausible and deals with the result of climate change on the American landscape and its population. This is one of the best novels I have read recently.

3 people found this helpful

Niamh

Absolutely brilliant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 June 2018

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I loved this book. I was drawn in right from the beginning with Sarat's story. It is a near future that is all too plausible to be comfortable.

It is beautifully written, and a must read for everyone in the current political climate.

3 people found this helpful

D. James

Excellent, thought provoking but dark book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 December 2019

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This is a brilliant, if dark, book. The story is centered around a second American civil war brought on by the effects of climate change and some peoples unwillingness to make changes and to adapt.
The main character, Sarat, is a Southener and a refugee displaced by the fighting and becomes radicalised while in a refugee camp. This is a very interesting and thought provoking twist which mirrors the plight of those caught up in fighting in the middle east currently.
I thought this book was really well written and I struggled to put it down. It's interesting how much it occupied my mind while I wasn't reading it too, a sure sign of an excellent plot.

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