Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

Hello loves!  Perhaps you've noticed I haven't been in the WHHS LMC this week.  I had urgent surgery Monday morning and will be out until 1/23.  Ms. Boyke will be filling in for me.

I saw the preview for the movie version of this book when we went to see Inferno.  As you know, it's my rule to read the book first.  I thought, based on the movie preview, it was a true story, however it is fiction.  It is written in such a way that makes it feel like it really happened.

A group of soldiers in Iraq have their actions filmed by a TV crew.  These young men go from nobodies to national heroes, simply because what they were doing was captured on film and broadcast.  Billy and his comrades are coming home to parties and accolades he doesn't feel they deserve, including recognition at a Dallas Cowboys game.

This book is about what many of soldiers face upon returning home from war.  Billy has no choice but to keep his emotions inside because he has been thrust upon a national stage for doing his sworn duty, one he might not agree with in totality.  While some soldiers get interviews, bridges or parks named after them, school assemblies, or some such publicity, many return home to find their homes in foreclosure, medical care out of reach (look at recent articles about our own VA hospital right here in West Haven), friends and family who have moved on without them, nightmares that never go away....

We will be putting this novel on our wish list for next autumn.

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Happy Holidays!  See you all very soon!