Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. 307 pages. This was one of my absolute favorites this year. A finalist for the 2012 National Book Award, Fountain's novel takes place, physically, during a Dallas Cowboy's home game on Thanksgiving. Billy and his comrades from Bravo Company (though the name their known by has been changed to Bravo Squad by the news-folk who made them famous) are heroes. They're on a victory tour and they are being wooed by Hollywood and the Cowboys owner for the rights to their story-specifically the firefight in Iraq that transfixed the nation as it was televised, and then repeated over and over again. Billy's got some secrets, his sister wants him out of the Army, he's got a thing going with one of the cheerleaders, and then there's the one that the whole squad shares, that they're not supposed to mention while on tour. He has things that he wants to talk about but can't, and things he does not want to talk about or think about. The characters are great, and their relationships to each other are almost frantic. It's a great read, one of the best of an excellent group of books about the recent wars. Check our catalog. Downloadable audio.