Ben Fountain - Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Financial Times“Often hilarious and sharply observant...” From that momentary blip of absurdity, Fountain has fashioned a novel that speaks, with great comedy and perhaps greater pathos, to the much larger absurdity of the Iraq war...

SFGate“The book's not merely good; it's Pulitzer Prize-quality good...” A bracing, fearless and uproarious satire of how contemporary war is waged and sold to the American public...

The Independent“Funny, oddly touching, written with garish clarity...” The book is lit up by verbal pyrotechnics, although there are times when you feel machine-gunned by half-formed metaphors, sandbagged by similes...

Guardian“An exhilarating read...” Fountain has a marvellous ear for dialogue, and Billy Lynn is written in a sharp, profane language that makes English English sound terminally dull...

Los Angeles Times“Rarely does such a ruminative novel close with such momentum...” Fountain's novel is not a work of realism; it's an über-story, defined by irony and metaphor. Texas Stadium stands in for America, where the wealthy in their special section have access and privilege completely alien to Billy...

The New York Times“A gripping, eloquent provocation...” Mr Fountain sets up this Thanksgiving game as an artfully detailed microcosm of America in general, and George W. Bush’s Texas in particular, during the Iraq war...