American War

Omar El Akkad Picador €18.50 It’s 2075, a year into America’s second civil war, and the violence has reached the Chestnut family in Louisiana, killing the father and forcing the mother and three children into a refugee camp. Six years later, a raid on the camp turns young Sarat Chestnut into a killing machine. The story shows war’s damage as it smothers a child’s joy, tears the heart from a young woman and pushes a nation already devastated by climate change to the brink of oblivion. A grim, plausible glimpse of a future United States and a stunning debut.