Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

2017 | Fiction & Poetry

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is a satirical war novel written by Ben Fountain, which was published in early May 2012 by Ecco Press, a publishing imprint of HarperCollins. The novel chronicles the experience of a group of Iraq War veterans who are hailed as heroes and sent on a victory tour following their engagement in an intense firefight that happened to be caught on camera. Set during a single day, the story primarily focuses on Specialist Billy Lynn's perspective as he struggles to reconnect with his family and come to grips with the huge disconnect between the realities of the war at home and the war overseas as Bravo Squad is sent to participate in the Dallas Cowboys' Thanksgiving halftime show. The novel's primary themes include fraternity, the commercialization of war, and what it really means to support the war when the real costs are barely felt by the majority of US citizens at home.

A sharp satire, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is Fountain's first novel. It received highly positive reviews from critics and won several awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Fountain also won the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize and won a 2012 National Book Award. The novel was especially praised for its dialogue and "pitch-perfect ear for American talk."

Ben Fountain (Author)