American War
By Omar El Akkad
(333 pages, fiction, 2017)
As soon as you begin this book you are immersed in a future that we are all dreading: the coasts have flooded, refugees are pouring from the coasts to the interior states, the national capital has been moved from Washington, DC to Columbus, Ohio and the nation is embroiled in its second Civil War.
This is the story of Sarat Chestnut and her family, refugees from Louisiana who make their way into the Free Southern States, hoping to find safety but finding only misery in Camp Patience, the tent city on the border between the South and the North. Only a child, Sarat is befriended and educated by a man who recruits freedom fighters, assassins and martyrs. But what are they fighting for? Mostly just to avenge wrongs, both real and imagined, against their people. And there are plenty of injustices and violence perpetrated by both sides.
The characters are all too believable; Sarat’s development is propelled by the suffering she sees in her community, which she is taught to blame solely on the Union. Some characters are simply opportunistic or profiteering, some are meddling on behalf of foreign interests that want to see America fail (it’s not who you’re thinking!) And so many people are struggling to survive in a harsh world in the midst of war and increasing heat that makes farming harder and harder.
It is also a tale of manipulation, propaganda, brutality and cruelty – as all war stories are. The frightening thing about this book is that it seems all too likely a future in which there are no victors, only destruction and ruin.
Maybe reading a book like this can move us to resolve our differences before this terrible vision becomes a reality.
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Julia Miller
