- 3 min read

From Child-Refugee to Weapon | American War

An Allegory of interventionalist policies as told through the lens of the Second American Civil War

The book cover is placed on the right side of a pale whitish grey rectangle. The book cover is mostly black with blueish barbed wire horizontally placed across the cover. The cover states American War A Novel by Omar El Akkad. Grey and black barbed wire stretches from underneath the cover to the farthest right edge of the rectangle. On the rectangle it says the books title and author. International Bestseller Winner of the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Nominated for the Andrew Carnegie Medal. @mycornerspot

Author: Omar El Akkad

Released: April 2017

Genre: Fiction, Cli-Fi, Dystopian

Pages: 352

Audiobook Length: 12 hours (approx.)

Narrator: Dion Graham

Awards/Acclaim

International Bestseller

Winner of the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize (2018)

Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award (2018)

Ken Kesey Award for Fiction (2018)

Longlisted for Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence, Fiction (2018)

Nominated for the Writers’ Trust Award, fiction (2017)

Chicago Public Library Best Books of 2017, Adult

and many more.

Book Review

Omar El Akkad gives readers a remarkable tale of the inhumanity of war and its effects on the population. The storytelling is rich and I felt transported to the near-future south.

The story is compelling. I sympathized with and cared for the characters. However, it did take about 30 percent of the book before I was hooked, at which point the pace became almost a quickening drumbeat of events. Additionally, the world-building was so expansive I couldn't always keep up with the separate factions.

All that being said, this is a great conflict narrative that is worthy of being a series or on-screen.

Even with my critiques of the book I was stunned that this is the author's first published book. Omar El Akkad is clearly deeply talented.

Plot

I like to think of the plot as the Green New Deal gone awry.

The year is 2074 when the Second American Civil War breaks out. The North and the Free Southern States are pitted against one another. The cause of the fracture is the prohibition of fossil fuels, which was enacted to counteract the ever-worsening change in climate and sea-level rise.

The story centers around the Chestnut family.

Sarat Chestnut is a mere child when she and her family are placed in the refugee camp, Camp Patience.

Eventually, Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into an instrument of war.

We are given a child's perspective of conflict and the repercussions of broken children growing into broken adults. The decisions Sarat makes will have consequences not just for her, her family, and her country. Her choices will ripple through generations of strangers and kin alike.

Additional Comments

Due to the political climate of the US when American War was published (2017), it was often viewed as a commentary on our current polarized nation. However, the author meant the book to serve as an allegory about superpowers enacting destabilizing policies on foreign nations and how said policies naturally lead to damaged people willing to commit horrific acts.

He brought wars abroad to our doorstep in an attempt to humanize the suffering of those too often viewed as "the other".

Reading the story is to sympathize with refugees whose slow-burn radicalization leads to unfathomable atrocities.

"Revenge is Recursive." - Omar El Akkad

You can listen to the author expand on his thoughts in regard to the intentions of the book on the Living Writers Online podcast below.

Content Warning:

Violence
War Themes
Torture

About the Author

Omar El Akkad is an award-winning author and journalist based in Portland, Oregon. Born in Egypt and raised in Qatar, he moved to Canada as a teenager and began his journalism career at the start of the war on terror. During his time as a journalist, he covered a wide range of topics, including the war in Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, Guantanamo Bay, and the Black Lives Matter movement.

In 2021, his second novel titled What Strange Paradise was published with great acclaim.

Random Note: The author once fibbed about caring deeply about Dune, despite having never seen the movie or read the book, simply so he could join a panel and experience human interaction in the throws of Covid isolation.

Internet brethren, I searched far and wide for video of the event and sadly failed, but you can listen to the author talk about this short escapade on the Canadaland podcast.

Verdict

Score: 9/10

The world building! It is a remarkable feat to envision such an expansive detailed future, not just in a wildly different United States but abroad as well. I do think, though, that in some ways the author was a victim to his own imagination. As I previously said, I couldn't always keep up with the varying factions.

However, it was highly enjoyable and will be a memorable book.

Additionally, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's recent comments on a "National Divorce" makes the book a timely read.

Pick it up at your library, local bookstore, or favorite online retailer.

A rusted out ship sits beached on the barren shore. Image says "Nativism being a pyramid scheme, I found myself contemptuous of the refugees’ presence in a city already overburdened... [T]heir unbelonging was proof of my belonging.” Omar El Ekkad, American War @mycornerspot — Pin on Pinterest to save this review.

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