I have been meaning to post this review for a couple days but I have struggled with how to write about American War. At first, I wasn’t sure if I liked the book (it took me a little while to really get into it). Having decided in the affirmative, I had to organize how I felt about it, which was easier said than done.
From the back cover copy: Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family moves into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she quickly begins to be shaped by her particular time and place until, finally, through the influence of a mysterious functionary, she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. Telling her story is her nephew, Benjamin Chestnut, born during the war and now an old man confronting the dark secret of his past — his family’s role in the conflict and, in particular, that of his aunt, a woman who saved his life while destroying untold others.
TL;DR, spoiler-free review: An unsettling look at the victims of war, how some individuals internalize hatred, and how they can transform into something just as bad as their oppressors. A good read and also an uncomfortable one.
You’re-verbose-and-I-like-it review: Usually I don’t like to look at a book in terms of “if this single event never happened, then everyone would be better off” because that means the story would never have happened and we wouldn’t have a book. Basically, it’s too flimsy an argument. American War, however, is almost haunted by its own past, commenting on events as they happen so that the reader knows that the decisions the characters make are mistakes. For example, Sarat’s mother, Martina, is tense and worried about her husband going into town, as if she knew ahead of time that he was about to die. Later, as Martina packs up her family to move to the refugee camp, the narrator tells the reader that the war, though close, never actually arrives on the Chestnut doorstep, meaning they would have been safer if they stayed in their home. Even Sarat’s name is a mistake: her name is Sara T. Chestnut, but when a teacher calls her “Sarat”, she accepts it as her name. The narrator constantly points to these moments where a decision must be made and the reader has to watch the characters make the wrong one, while also knowing that, if they were in the same situation, they would likely do the same thing.
I wish the book’s world-building had been a bit better. While all the events the characters experience make sense and function well, I would have liked a better understanding of the beginning of the war. For example, a few of the southwestern states become Mexican territory and it’s never really explained how that happened. This is especially frustrating since Benjamin, Sarat’s nephew, is telling the story, and he’s supposed to be an historian! Also, race is barely mentioned in the book, outside of the main character being black and Hispanic. Maybe racism has been solved in this future, maybe there aren’t any people of colour in this part of the country, but isn’t it a bit strange that the story takes place in the American South and race is never mentioned? My best guess would be that Omar El Akkad had to keep his story pretty streamlined as it’s already over 400 pages. Still. Strange.
American War can very easily be seen as a commentary on historical conflicts as it parallels the (first? actual?) Civil War and the War on Terror but this book is more about the effects of war on the victims. Thanks to the narrator, we know exactly what Sarat’s life should be like, had different choices been made, but instead, we see how the war effectively turns her into a terrorist. Perhaps that is why I find the book unsettling: it’s not that readers like or empathize with Sarat, it’s that they see how she grew from a child into a terrorist and they understand exactly how it happened.