Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

All the while, he knows he is heading back to Iraq in a couple of days to put himself in harms way again. His best friend was killed in the attack, and he is grieving at the same time he is being thrust into the limelight and given star treatment with his unit. Billy Lynn is a soldier from Texas that was and lauded for bravery after his unit was ambushed. 'It took a while to get into this, but the story of a young soldier (he's 19) being taken to a Dallas Cowboys game on Thanksgiving in 2004 as part of a 'heros tour' got to me strongly. Poignant, riotously funny, and exquisitely heartbreaking, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is a searing and powerful novel that has cemented Ben Fountain’s reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation. In the final few hours before returning to Iraq, Billy will drink and brawl, yearn for home and mourn those missing, face a heart-wrenching decision, and discover pure love and a bitter wisdom far beyond his years. Over the course of this day, Billy will begin to understand difficult truths about himself, his country, his struggling family, and his brothers-in-arms-soldiers both dead and alive. Among these faces Billy sees those of his family-his worried sisters and broken father-and Shroom, the philosophical sergeant who opened Billy’s mind and died in his arms. Amid clamoring patriots sporting flag pins on their lapels and support our troops bumper stickers on their cars, the Bravos are thrust into the company of the team owner and his coterie of wealthy colleagues a luscious born-again cheerleader a veteran Hollywood producer and supersized pro players eager for a vicarious taste of war. Now, on this chilly and rainy Thanksgiving, the Bravos are guests of a Dallas football team, slated to be part of the halftime show.Īmong the Bravos is Specialist William Lynn, a nineteen-year-old Texas native. For the past two weeks, the Bush administration has sent them on a media-intensive nationwide Victory Tour to reinvigorate public support for the war. A re-release of this award-winning, critically acclaimed novel just in time for its major motion picture release, directed by Two-time Academy Award® winner Ang Lee, screenplay by Jean-Christophe Castelli and featuring Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Garrett Hedlund, with Vin Diesel and Steve Martin.Ī ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents-caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew-has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America’s most sought-after heroes.

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain