Civil War, again
What might happen if a divided United States turned its weapons on its own people? That’s the unsettling premise of Omar El Akkad’s debut novel, “American War.”
Near the start of this frightening and heartbreaking book, El Akkad explicitly summarizes the novel’s vision of the future. The Second American Civil War lasted from 2074 to 2093, fought between the Union and the secessionist states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. (Originally an ally, Texas was annexed by Mexico.) The primary cause of the conflict was the Sustainable Future Act, prohibiting the use of fossil fuels anywhere in the U.S.
After a suicide bomber killed the American president, the so-called Free Southern State declared independence, precipitating five years of Union victories, followed by a lull in hostilities and then another period of guerrilla violence instigated by rebel secessionists. On the date of the planned Reunification Day Ceremony, a terrorist unleashed a biological agent that ultimately claimed 110 million lives and reshaped the geography of North America.
Following that initial burst of exposition, El Akkad shifts the time frame to 2075 and the narrative focus to 6-year-old Sara T. “Sarat” Chestnut. The girl lives with her parents, older brother and twin sister in flooded St. James, La., a place of relative safety in a land torn apart by climate change and political turmoil. When Sarat’s father dies while seeking passage to the North, his absence only partly explains why, when it seems as if their home will be destroyed, Sarat’s mother is so willing to seek refuge aboard a bus headed to Camp Patience.
All the surviving Chestnuts come to rue that hasty decision. As “displaced persons” with ties to the South, they are held for years at Camp Patience. It’s a rough existence, one Sarat meets head-on as she reacts to injustice and petty cruelty. Eventually she encounters a mysterious mentor who offers her the chance to hone her survival skills for a coming day of reckoning. But even Sarat isn’t prepared for the level of violence unleashed against those she loves.
Now residing in Portland, Ore., El Akkad was born in Egypt and grew up in Qatar before immigrating to Canada. As a journalist for the Globe and Mail and other publications, he has covered war in Afghanistan, military trials at Guantanamo and Black Lives Matters protests in Missouri. He transitions to the novel smoothly, with a reporter’s eye for detail and ear for dialogue, as well as a generous appreciation for what makes an engaging story.
Although he sets “American War” in the future, El Akkad has his vision fixed squarely on current events. Waterboarding, rendition, extreme interrogation, rising coastlines and domestic terrorism all play their part in the story. But “American War” avoids becoming a polemic. Its characters are too vivid and contradictory, its twists of plot too well constructed, for the novel to settle for familiar and obvious messages.
Still, the novel explores some timeless truths. A supporting character observes that “the misery of war represented the world’s only truly universal language. Its native speakers occupied different ends of the world, and the prayers they recited were not the same and the empty superstitions to which they clung so dearly were not the same — and yet they were.”
“American War” is a dark, grim and often upsetting narrative, each sequence leading inexorably to the tale’s violent conclusion. But El Akkad also takes care to delineate the joys that life can bring, whether it’s the simple pleasure of owning a pet turtle or raising strawberries in a carefully tended greenhouse or sharing a moment of intimacy with a beloved sibling.
Nobody enters the world a soldier, but El Akkad doesn’t shrink from delineating how easily they can be created. The Chestnuts are wrecked by the war, and the nation itself will pay a heavy price for their destruction. As the initially unidentified narrator says, “This isn’t a story about war. It’s about ruin.”
The theme of “American War” recalls the famous verse by W.H. Auden: “I and the public know/ What all schoolchildren learn,/ Those to whom evil is done/ Do evil in return.” El Akkad unflinchingly shows both faces of that evil.
Two events of seeming coincidence slightly mar the final chapters of “American War.” Through happenstance, Sarat is reunited with key figures from her past. One such unplanned reunion would be believable, but a second, though adding an arresting note of irony, undermines the sense of reality that El Akkad has conveyed so well. Although jarring, this is a minor moment of clumsiness in a novel animated with tremendous grace.
“American War” sketches a harsh portrait of the latter years of this so-far confounding century. It also insists that we confront what is happening around us right now. The notion of civil war doesn’t feel as far-fetched as it once did, and El Akkad ably addresses the issue with honesty, insight and compassion.