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Also by Ben Fountain:

Devil Makes Three, October 2023
Hardcover / e-Book
Devil Makes Three, October 2023
Hardcover
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, May 2012
Hardcover / e-Book
Brief Encounters With Che Guevara, April 2007
Paperback

BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK
By: Ben Fountain

HarperCollins
May 2012
On Sale: May 1, 2012
Featuring: Billy Lynn
320 pages
ISBN: 0060885599
EAN: 9780060885595
Kindle: B00655KLOY
Hardcover / e-Book
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Fiction Family Life

A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents at "the battle of Al-Ansakar Canal"—three minutes and forty-three seconds of intense warfare 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. 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. Now, on this chilly and rainy Thanksgiving, the Bravos are guests of America's Team, the Dallas Cowboys, slated to be part of the halftime show alongside the superstar pop group Destiny's Child.

Among the Bravos is the Silver Star–winning hero of Al-Ansakar Canal, Specialist William Lynn, a nineteen-year-old Texas native. 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 Cowboys' hard-nosed businessman/owner and his coterie of wealthy colleagues; a luscious born-again Cowboys cheerleader; a veteran Hollywood producer; and supersized pro players eager for a vicarious taste of war. 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 at Al-Ansakar.

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. 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.

Poignant, riotously funny, and exquisitely heartbreaking, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk is a devastating portrait of our time, a searing and powerful novel that cements Ben Fountain's reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation.

Media Buzz

Diane Rehm Show - NPR - December 31, 2013
Fresh Air - NPR - November 26, 2013
Diane Rehm Show - NPR - November 20, 2013
On Point - December 27, 2012
On Point - December 6, 2012