Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK
by Ben Fountain

 Awards: Center For Fiction Winner 2012, LA Times Winner 2012, National Book Critics Circle 2012

 Nominations: Carnegie Longlist 2013, Dayton Literary Peace Finalist 2013, Dublin Longlist 2014, National Book Finalist 2012

 Date Read: May 8, 2020

 Fountain did an incredible job of packing almost a lifetime into a single day. A novel that combines the military and football was not something I was looking forward to, but Fountain's writing and character development kept me engaged.

 Now that I'm writing this, I am unsure what branch of the military Billy's in, but I assume it's the Army. Billy is home from the war in Iraq on a victory tour, being paraded around the U.S. to generate goodwill for a very unpopular war. At only 19, Billy finds himself in multiple situations that are above his pay-grade, honored for the worst day of his life. What's worse is he continually relives it throughout his victory tour because, of course, that's what everyone wants to talk about.

 Strangers continually approach for a brush with heroes, throwing all the buzz words at them: freedom, service, sacrifice, 9/11, terror, bravery, etc. Since this Cowboys game is at the end of their tour and they will be imminently deployed back to Iraq, the soldiers of Bravo are tired. So tired, in fact, that at the end, they welcome returning to Iraq. 

 Fountain brilliantly described the juxtaposition of being in the middle of an insane halftime show, brushing shoulders with Beyonce, against the reality of their re-deployment. It's jarring. Add in a fight, the PTSD-evoking halftime show, becoming infatuated with a cheerleader, negotiating a movie deal and navigating a day-long headache and drunk fest, and the reader can understand why Iraq doesn't seem so bad after all.

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