American War (novel)

American War is the first novel by Canadian-Egyptian journalist Omar El Akkad. It is set in a near-future United States of America, ravaged by climate change and disease, in which a second Civil War has broken out over the use of fossil fuels. The story is told by Benjamin Chestnut about his aunt, Sarat Chestnut, and is told through narrative chapters interspersed with fictional primary documents collected by the narrator.

American War

First edition
Author	Omar El Akkad
Country	United States of America
Language	English
Genre	Fiction, science-fiction
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	April 4, 2017
Media type	Print (Softcover)
ISBN	978-1-5098-5220-8

Plot

In 2074, after the passage of a bill that bans the use of fossil fuels anywhere in the United States, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas secede from the Union, starting the "Second American Civil War." South Carolina is quickly incapacitated by a virus, known as "The Slow," that makes its inhabitants lethargic, and Texas is invaded and occupied by Mexico, while the remaining "Free Southern States" continue to fight. The novel is told from the point of view of Sarat and her nephew, Benjamin.

Sarat is 6 years old when the war breaks out. She lives with her family on the climate change-ravaged coast of Louisiana. Her family consists of her parents Benjamin and Martina, her older brother Simon, and her fraternal twin Dana Chestnut. After Sarat's father is killed during a "homicide bombing" in Baton Rouge in 2075, Sarat and her family relocate to a refugee camp called "Camp Patience," located on the Mississippi–Tennessee border.

Sarat and her family spend the next six years living a squalid existence at Camp Patience. In 2081, when Sarat is 12 years old, she befriends the charismatic Albert Gaines, a recruiter for the Southern rebels. Gaines introduces her to an agent of the emerging Bouazizi Empire named Joe, who is sending aid to the Free Southern States to keep the United States weak and divided. Later, a Northern militia unit attacks Camp Patience and massacres many of the refugees, killing Sarat's mother and wounding her brother. Overcome by grief and rage, Sarat kills one of the top generals of the Northern Union.

Following the Camp Patience massacre, Sarat and her siblings are resettled by the Free Southern government in Lincolnton, Georgia, on the border with South Carolina. The two sisters are joined by Simon, who is suffering from a bullet still lodged in his brain. Five years later, in 2086, the Chestnut siblings settle in to their new lives. While Sarat has become a member of Gaines' rebel group, the broken Simon is tended by a Bangladeshi American woman named Karina. As time passes, Simon and Karina develop romantic feelings for each other.

During a guerrilla operation near a U.S. base along the Georgia-Tennessee border, Sarat assassinates General Joseph Weiland, a prominent U.S. commander. While Sarat is hailed as a hero by the Free Southern States, Weiland's assassination only hardens the U.S.'s resolve to end the Southern insurgency, leading to a crackdown against the Southern guerrillas. Sarat eventually grows disillusioned with the corrupt and self-serving Southern leadership. Later, Dana is killed when a rogue drone bombs a bus she was traveling in.

Sarat is later captured by U.S. forces who imprison her at the Sugarloaf Detention Facility in the Florida Sea. Sarat later learns her mentor Gaines betrayed her to the U.S. For the next seven years, Sarat is repeatedly tortured, including being subjected to water boarding. To end the torment, Sarat confesses to several, exaggerated charges. Sarat is later released after the U.S. government deems Gaines an unreliable source.

Years later, Simon has married Karina, who produced a son named Benjamin. In 2095, the 6-year-old Benjamin meets his aunt Sarat, who settles down on Benjamin's homestead. Sarat is later visited by one of her former rebel comrades, who informs her that his group has captured Bud Baker, one of her former Sugarloaf captors who tortured her. Sarat kills Bud but decides to spare his family after discovering he had two teenage twin sons.

Back at Benjamin's household, tensions between Sarat and her brother's wife Karina rise after Benjamin sustains a broken arm and Sarat binds it with a crude prosthetic. Benjamin realizes that his aunt is still haunted by her childhood at Camp Patience. As his arm recovers, Benjamin becomes friendly with his aunt.

Sarat is later visited by the Bouazizi agent Joe who recruits her into carrying a deadly virus into the Reunification Ceremony in Columbus, Ohio. Joe reveals that his real name is Yousef Bin Rashid and that the Bouazizi Empire wants to prevent the re-emergence of the U.S. as a superpower. Seeking revenge against the U.S. government, Sarat accepts the offer and convinces her former rebel comrades to secure her passage to the Reunification Ceremony. Before leaving, Sarat visits the crippled Gaines at his cabin but leaves without killing him. She also arranges for her associates to smuggle her nephew Benjamin to safety in New Anchorage. Later, Sarat infiltrates the Reunification Ceremony. The resulting "Reunification Plague" kills 110 million people, devastating the already war-torn country.

The orphaned Benjamin settles to his new life in New Anchorage and becomes a respected historian. Decades later, Benjamin discovers his aunt's diaries and learns of her experiences during the Second American Civil War and her role in the Reunification Plague. To spite his aunt, Benjamin burns her diaries but keeps one page as a memento.

Setting

Much of the novel is set in the "Free Southern States," which is originally consisted of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas. The U.S. was split between a secessionist southern state comprising parts of the old southeastern U.S. and the remaining northern and western states; near the outset of the war, Mexico annexed or occupied large portions of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.[1] Other secessionist movements are mentioned: Northern California, Oregon, Washington and parts of Canada are in talks to form Cascadia. The novel is interspersed with several "in-universe" historical documents, interviews, and media reports.

The "Second American Civil War" lasts between 2074 and 2095. The conflict was precipitated by the assassination of President Ki during a suicide bombing attack in 2073 and the shooting of Southern protesters outside Fort Jackson in South Carolina in 2074. After five years of conventional warfare around the borders of the Free Southern States, rebel "insurrectionists" wage a guerrilla warfare against U.S. forces. Following a protracted negotiation process, the war is settled in the United States' favor. However, a "secessionist terrorist" (later revealed to be the protagonist Sarat) releases a biological agent known as the "Reunification Plague" during the Reunification Day Ceremony in Columbus, Ohio, which kills 110 million in a nationwide epidemic. Refugees flee to New Anchorage as the country begins the long process of "reconstruction." The Reunification Plague is also revealed to be the result of a failed attempt by the virologist Gerry Tusk to find a cure to "The Slow."

The rest of the world has also seen geopolitical change. After multiple failed revolutions, the states of Northern Africa and portions of the Arab world and Central Asia have united as the Bouazizi Empire, with their capital in Cairo. China and the Bouazizi nations have emerged as the world's dominant economies and the European migrant crisis has reversed, with refugees from the collapsed European Union states fleeing across the Mediterranean to North Africa. In a reversal of great power politics, China and the Bouazizi Empire send aid to the war-torn United States. The Bouazizi Empire also channels funding to the Free Southern States in an attempt to destabilize the United States, which it regards as a rival to its imperial ambitions. Russia is said to have undertaken a period of aggressive expansion and renamed itself as the Russian Union.

Climate change also had a significant impact on the world. Florida was inundated by rising sea levels, only existing as a small archipelago. In a reference to Guantánamo Bay's Camp X-Ray, Florida's Sugarloaf Mountain has been repurposed as a detention facility. Much of Louisiana is under water and New Orleans is entirely abandoned. After intense migration inland from the flooded eastern seaboard, the U.S.'s capital of was relocated to Columbus. The Arabian Peninsula is too hot to support life, instead being devoted to solar power production. Simon's wife Karina is said to have been born in the Bangladeshi Isles, suggesting extensive flooding in South Asia.

Reception

In The New York Times, book critic Michiko Kakutani compared it favorably to Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Philip Roth's novel The Plot Against America. She wrote that "badly melodramatic" dialogue could be forgiven by the use of details that makes the fictional future "seem alarmingly real".[2]

The novel was a shortlisted finalist for the 2017 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize,[3] and for the 2018 amazon.ca First Novel Award.[4] It also was a finalist for the 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award.[5] It was also one of the five books in the finals of the 2018 Canada Reads contest and was the fourth book eliminated.[6]

In November 2019 the BBC News listed American War on a list of the 100 most influential novels.[7]

References

1. Hill, Lawrence (31 March 2017). "Omar El Akkad's American War, reviewed: A masterful debut". The Globe and the Mail. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
2. Kakutani, Michiko (2017-03-27). "A Haunting Debut Looks Ahead to a Second American Civil War". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-07-02.
3. "David Chariandy, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson among finalists for $50K Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize". CBC Books, September 27, 2017.
4. "Sharon Bala, Omar El Akkad among finalists for $40K Amazon.ca First Novel Award". CBC Books, April 28, 2018.
5. "Arthur C. Clarke Award". Archived from the original on 2018-11-04. Retrieved 2019-01-04.
6. Who Won Canada Reads 2018, CBC Books, 2018-03-26. Retrieved 2020-03-20
7. "Margaret Atwood, L.M. Montgomery, Carol Shields featured on BBC's list of 100 novels that shaped the world". CBC News. 2019-11-08. Retrieved 2019-11-09. Omar El Akkad's American War is the most recently published Canadian novel on the BBC's list. The journalist's debut book came out in 2017 and won the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for fiction, a $10,000 award. It was also featured on Canada Reads 2018, when it was defended by Tahmoh Penikett.