American War

Holly says: This 2017 novel by Canadian-Egyptian Omar El Akkad taught me the literary name for one of my favorite storytelling mechanisms: historiographic metafiction. American War follows Sarat, a climate refugee who was a young child at the start of the Second American Civil War. As the country battles over fossil fuels and a large number of citizens are displaced by climate change, Sarat befriends a mysterious stranger and slowly becomes radicalized. This was one of those books that stopped me in my tracks multiple times as I rolled a phrase or a sentence around in my brain, appreciating the author's lyrical and truthful language. The story felt real, true, possible, and in some elements perhaps prescient. I’d be curious to re-read it now and see how it has held up over time. Content warnings apply.