America Fantastica : A Novel

�_oTim O'Brien is the one American author whose works I look forward to the most. His new novel�_Ts ironic depiction of a post-Iraq war, mid-COVID, and mid-Trump world is piercing and razor-sharp.�__ �_"HARUKI MURAKAMIAn American Master returns: the author of TheA�Things They Carried delivers his first new novel inA�two decades, a brilliant and rollicking odyssey,A�in which a bank robbery sparks �_oa satirical romp through a country plaguedA�by deceit�__ (Kirkus, starred review)One of Esquire's 20 Best Books of the Year * Named one of Fall 2023's most anticipated books: New York Times, Associated Press, Kirkus, Goodreads, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and moreAt 11:34 a.m. one Saturday in August 2019, Boyd Halverson strode into Community National Bank in Northern California. �_oHow much is on hand, would you say?�__ he asked the teller. �_oI�_Tll want it all.�__�_oYou�_Tre robbing me?�__He revealed a Temptation .38 Special. The teller, a diminutive redhead named Angie Bing, collected eighty-one thousand dollars. Boyd stuffed the cash into a paper grocery bag. �_oI�_Tm sorry about this,�__ he said, �_obut I�_Tll have to ask you to take a ride with me.�__So begins the adventure of Boyd Halverson�_"star journalist turned notorious online disinformation troll turned JCPenney manager�_"and his irrepressible hostage, Angie Bing. Haunted by his past and weary of his present, Boyd has one goal before the authorities catch up with him: settle a score with the man who destroyed his life. By Monday the pair reach Mexico; by winter, they are in a lakefront mansion in Minnesota. On their trail are hitmen, jealous lovers, ex-cons, an heiress, a billionaire shipping tycoon, a three-tour veteran of Iraq, and the ghosts of Boyd�_Ts past. Everyone, it seems, except the police. In the tradition of Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain,A�America FantasticaA�delivers a biting, witty, and entertaining story about the causes and costs of outlandish fantasy, while also marking the triumphant return of an essential voice in American letters. And at the heart of the novel, amid a teeming cast of characters, readers will delight in the tug-of-war between two memorable and iconic human beings�_"the exuberant savior-of-souls Angie Bing and the penitent but compulsive liar Boyd Halverson. Just as Tim O�_TBrien�_Ts modern classic,A�The Things They Carried, so brilliantly reflected the unromantic truth of war, America FantasticaA�puts a mirror to a nation and a time that has become dangerously unmoored from truth and greedy for delusion.