New York Times BestsellerNow a Major Motion Picture“Brilliantly done . . . grand, intimate, and joyous.”—New York Times Book Review
“Mothers, father, sons, and daughters: read this giant-hearted novel.”—MARIA SEMPLE, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette
Three minutes and forty-three seconds of intensive warfare with Iraqi insurgents—caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew—has transformed … Bernadette
Three minutes and forty-three seconds of intensive warfare with Iraqi insurgents—caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew—has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America’s most sought-after heroes. Now they’re on a media-intensive nationwide tour to reinvigorate public support for the war. On this rainy Thanksgiving Day, the Bravos are guests of a Dallas football team, slated to be part of the halftime show.
Among the Bravos is nineteen-year-old Specialist Billy Lynn. Surrounded by patriots sporting flag pins on their lapels and support our troops bumper stickers, he is thrust into the company of the team’s owner and his coterie of wealthy colleagues; a born-again cheerleader; a veteran Hollywood producer; and supersized players eager for a vicarious taste of war. Over the course of this day, Billy will drink and brawl, yearn for home and mourn those missing, face a heart-wrenching decision and discover pure love and a bitter wisdom far beyond his years.
Poignant, riotously funny, and exquisitely heartbreaking, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is a searing and powerful novel that has cemented Ben Fountain’s reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation.
more
I’m a sucker for Texas, for good writing, and for stuff that makes you think.
“So much of life consists of inertia and drift, the brief savory or sour of any particular day tends to blur into the next so that it all becomes on big flavorless wad. There are so few moments you can point to and say, Yes, that was historic, greatness happened that …
It’s 2007 or 2008, and the bloom is well off the Iraq War rose when news footage of a confused squad-level engagement vaults the surviving members of Bravo Squad into national celebrity. The Bush Administration trots them around swing states on a two-week “Victory Tour,” the latest in its endless attempts to portray the war as something other than …
I found this book to be very powerful and timely. It helped me understand the disconnect between the young people we send across the world to fight wars we give little thought to and the shallow consumerist, self-absorbed country they come home to. Having experienced what they have overseas, how can they come home and resume the lives they left?
I tell everyone to read this book. Ben Fountain writes characters in a way that makes you want to know the good ones and slap the bad.
The interesting thing about this book is that the ‘Half-Time’ referred to is a real football game. After you read the book when the half-time show occurs you can go to Youtube and see the actual show as it …
Didn’t really care for it. Wasn’t crazy about it as I read but persevered to the end and then wondered why. Sometimes it was quite funny and at other times, sad. Those were the redeeming moments of it. Not my cup of tea.
Read the first 100 pages-really boring -just couldn’t finish it
This book carried me away. Lyrical, cynical, a poignant portrait of life in America from a compassionate yet realistic perspective. A treatise delivering observations of war and its many casualties … somewhat reminiscent of a Vonnegut novel though the author’s strong voice is uniquely his own. Captivating.
A story leaves me staring straight ahead–speechless. Bewildered, yet enlightened. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain is one of those books which could ruin me for awhile. In other words, no other fiction read will have near as much impact to my psyche. Fountain has written a profound narrative certainly with political implications …
War and heroism as merchandised with football. Real soldiers, real humans. I can’t capture this book in few words. Read it.
In the middle of an assignment in Iraq, eight men are flown back to the U.S. to go on a surreal “victory tour” culminating in a Thanksgiving halftime extravaganza. But the war isn’t over, they aren’t home for good, and they have to go back.
I loved this; the voice is easily, elegantly, sublimely human. My heart went out to the character trying to …
Interesting information on pro football and on the people fighting in Iraq. But I categorize it primarily as male fantasy fiction–Billy Lynn is too perfect in every way–intellectually, morally, physically.