- This novel by acclaimed journalist Omar El Akkad, who was born in the Middle East and raised in Canada and the US, is an extremely powerful condemnation of the warmongering character of America. His most recent book is the superb non-fiction work One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (which I reviewed here).
- Set in the future, in the years 2074-2095, it tells the story of the Second Civil War between the 'Blue North' and the 'Red South'. It depicts in graphic detail the ugliness and depravity of the conflict.
- Its focus throughout is on personal and family relationships, and not on social realities in the future. There is nothing much on technology, no one has phones, there's nothing on the economy or global relationships, no mention of China or India. The only exception is the existence of a new nation in the middle east, a unity of all previous Arab nations. (No mention of Israel).
- But there are a lot of references to climate change. The weather, whatever the season, is unbearably hot with frequent and severe storms. Interestingly, while many US states are mentioned, the state of Florida is not. It's not on the map of the United States we're given in the opening pages of the book. We're to assume it simply disappeared by rising sea levels.
- The causes of the new war are because the South vigorously resisted the Federal Government's decree to eliminate all ruinous fossil fuel corporations and government operations. All power is solar, including cars and trucks.
- Ruins and decadence are everywhere, as is extreme poverty. We're confronted with the ugliness of authority and the military. It's also, in a serious way, anti-men. Men need wars because fighting is in their bones, fundamental to their nature. Women, on the other hand, mostly want peace and reconciliation, for the benefit of their children. The author is clear that this could be any war America has fought since its inception.
- The principal character in the novel is the young woman Sara T. Chestnut, who goes by the name Sarat. She's strong, fierce and determined, and she fights for the South. She's African-American.
- As the novel progresses we're taken on Sarat's journey and the family members and other characters she befriends during her life. She becomes highly respected in the Southern states and wanted by the North. She's a killer.
- She is eventually captured and brutally tortured, but she survives and is freed when the war is officially over. But then she takes serious revenge.
- The novel comes to a very satisfying resolution in the end. But it is still horrific. This is America after all. War is embedded in the national character.
