Kemper's Reviews > Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
by
by
![405390](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1715435109p2/405390.jpg)
Kemper's review
bookshelves: 2013, modern-lit, military, politics, bidness, sports, war, favorites, usa-usa
Mar 07, 2013
bookshelves: 2013, modern-lit, military, politics, bidness, sports, war, favorites, usa-usa
It’s probably a bad idea for the US military to allow the troops overseas to get the news from back home. I have this fear that someday the service men and women in places like Iraq and Afghanistan will finally snap after seeing the people they’ve pledged to defend are less interested in what they’re doing than TV reality shows and celebrity gossip. If the military ever decides that the pack of assholes back in America isn’t worth fighting and dying for, we could find all that hardware aiming back at us someday. I really wouldn’t blame them.
Billy Lynn is a young soldier who was serving in Iraq with Bravo squad. After Bravo got into a hellacious firefight with a band of insurgents that was captured on camera by an embedded Fox News crew, the members of Bravo become national heroes. To capitalize on their popularity, the Bush administration has Bravo brought back to the US and sent them on a ‘Victory Tour’ (Which just so happens to run through critical electoral states for the next election.) to drum up support for the war.
The Victory Tour culminates at a Thanksgiving Day pro football game at Texas Stadium in which Bravo is supposed to play a part in the half-time show. While Billy and the other Bravo members have been enjoying some of the perks of being heroes on tour, it also means putting up with the people who want to prove their support of the troops by fawning over them as well as being used as PR props by anyone with an agenda like the owner of the Cowboys.* Bravo would also like to sign a film deal before they have to deploy back to Iraq in a few days so they can at least get a nice payday for their efforts, but the producer they’re working with is having problems getting Hollywood interested in a war movie set in Iraq.
(*Ben Fountain avoids a lawsuit by creating a fictional asshole owner of the Cowboys instead of naming Jerry Jones, the actual asshole owner of the Cowboys.)
I started noting passages I wanted to quote in this review, but I hit a point where I was finding something on every page so I gave up on that plan. There was so much about this one that I loved, that I don’t really know where to start.
Young Billy Lynn is one of the best and most sympathetic characters I’ve read in a long while. He’s a 19-year-old virgin who can’t legally drink, but he’s gone to war and had more experience with death than most would have in a lifetime. Billy is nervous when dealing with the older, wealthier good old boys who want to glad-hand Bravo at the game, and he has a somewhat naive belief that there is someone wiser than him that can explain all the feelings that combat and the aftermath have stirred in him. However, he also has a grunt's hyper-awareness of hypocrisy and bullshit.
As Bravo endures a long day of being used as props for photo ops and a half-time show, Billy’s musings and observations about the people and events in the stadium showcase a society that will spend billions on sports but pays it’s soldiers a pittance while patting themselves on the back for the way they support the troops by offering them applause and trinkets before sending them back to war.
That’s a powerful point, but what makes this so great is that the message is delivered so deftly and without the heavy handed political left or right wing political manifesto that is part of almost any writing done about these kinds of subjects. It’s also funny and absolutely nails many things that are great and ridiculous about America.
It’s only March, but I think I may have an early winner for Best Book I Read This Year.
Billy Lynn is a young soldier who was serving in Iraq with Bravo squad. After Bravo got into a hellacious firefight with a band of insurgents that was captured on camera by an embedded Fox News crew, the members of Bravo become national heroes. To capitalize on their popularity, the Bush administration has Bravo brought back to the US and sent them on a ‘Victory Tour’ (Which just so happens to run through critical electoral states for the next election.) to drum up support for the war.
The Victory Tour culminates at a Thanksgiving Day pro football game at Texas Stadium in which Bravo is supposed to play a part in the half-time show. While Billy and the other Bravo members have been enjoying some of the perks of being heroes on tour, it also means putting up with the people who want to prove their support of the troops by fawning over them as well as being used as PR props by anyone with an agenda like the owner of the Cowboys.* Bravo would also like to sign a film deal before they have to deploy back to Iraq in a few days so they can at least get a nice payday for their efforts, but the producer they’re working with is having problems getting Hollywood interested in a war movie set in Iraq.
(*Ben Fountain avoids a lawsuit by creating a fictional asshole owner of the Cowboys instead of naming Jerry Jones, the actual asshole owner of the Cowboys.)
I started noting passages I wanted to quote in this review, but I hit a point where I was finding something on every page so I gave up on that plan. There was so much about this one that I loved, that I don’t really know where to start.
Young Billy Lynn is one of the best and most sympathetic characters I’ve read in a long while. He’s a 19-year-old virgin who can’t legally drink, but he’s gone to war and had more experience with death than most would have in a lifetime. Billy is nervous when dealing with the older, wealthier good old boys who want to glad-hand Bravo at the game, and he has a somewhat naive belief that there is someone wiser than him that can explain all the feelings that combat and the aftermath have stirred in him. However, he also has a grunt's hyper-awareness of hypocrisy and bullshit.
As Bravo endures a long day of being used as props for photo ops and a half-time show, Billy’s musings and observations about the people and events in the stadium showcase a society that will spend billions on sports but pays it’s soldiers a pittance while patting themselves on the back for the way they support the troops by offering them applause and trinkets before sending them back to war.
That’s a powerful point, but what makes this so great is that the message is delivered so deftly and without the heavy handed political left or right wing political manifesto that is part of almost any writing done about these kinds of subjects. It’s also funny and absolutely nails many things that are great and ridiculous about America.
It’s only March, but I think I may have an early winner for Best Book I Read This Year.
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Quotes Kemper Liked
![Ben Fountain](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1191287180i/7079.jpg)
“Without ever exactly putting his mind to it, he's come to believe that loss is the standard trajectory. Something new appears in the world-a baby, say, or a car or a house, or an individual shows some special talent-with luck and huge expenditures of soul and effort you might keep the project stoked for a while, but eventually, ultimately, its going down. This is a truth so brutally self-evident that he can't fathom why it's not more widely percieved, hence his contempt for the usual public shock and outrage when a particular situation goes to hell. The war is fucked? Well, duh. Nine-eleven? Slow train coming. They hate our freedoms? Yo, they hate our actual guts! Billy suspects his fellow Americans secretly know better, but something in the land is stuck on teenage drama, on extravagant theatrics of ravaged innocence and soothing mud wallows of self-justifying pity.”
― Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
― Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Reading Progress
March 7, 2013
–
Started Reading
March 7, 2013
– Shelved
March 14, 2013
–
Finished Reading
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![Kemper](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1715435109p1/405390.jpg)
High praise. I shall put it on the list.....great review."
Thanks. It's a keeper.
![Toby](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1542247337p1/5454475.jpg)
![Kemper](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1715435109p1/405390.jpg)
I also saw the movie but never read the book. Yeah, it's got a little bit of that kind of vibe about paying lip service to these kinds of guys as heroes but only to the extent that it won't inconvenience anyone.
![Kemper](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1715435109p1/405390.jpg)
I hope you like it at least half as much as I did.
![Abhinav](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1649879558p1/10051075.jpg)
![Kemper](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1715435109p1/405390.jpg)
Glad to hear it but I feel like I should post my official disclaimer again:
Warning - If you decide to read something because of a review I wrote, then you should take into account that I'm an uneducated hillbilly living in the wilds of Kansas, and that I'm half-deranged from all the improperly distilled corn liquor I drink. So consider the source, and I'll accept absolutely NO responsibility if you hate it.
![Kemper](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1715435109p1/405390.jpg)
I've gone with the shack in the woods that's overrun by feral cats approach to rural life.
![Checkman](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1591798821p1/5117003.jpg)
I've gone with the shack in the woods that's overrun by feral cats approach to rural l..."
Well at least the rodent population is kept under control
![Sarah](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1703783901p1/193255.jpg)
This paragraph in itself would make me want to read this even if I hadn't already put it on my to-read list.
![Kemper](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1715435109p1/405390.jpg)
If I would have started quoting from it, I wouldn't have been able to stop until I got hit with the copyright infringement lawsuit.
![James Thane](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1442513566p1/3483907.jpg)
![Jeffrey Keeten](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1675636329p1/3427339.jpg)
![Kemper](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1715435109p1/405390.jpg)
They shouldn't feel threatened because this guy is still on watch.
![Jeffrey Keeten](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1675636329p1/3427339.jpg)
Thank goodness. I can feel comfortable standing down now. whew.
![Checkman](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1591798821p1/5117003.jpg)
You know I am a member of the NRA. If I was a politically correct gunowner I would be outraged, but truth be told that was funny. Very funny.
![Kemper](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1715435109p1/405390.jpg)
Since you're an officer of the law I would have assumed that you share the government's frustration that ole Earl is preventing you from instituting the police state all of you fascist types are plotting.
![Checkman](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1591798821p1/5117003.jpg)
That's right. Until we get old Earl out of the way my Jackboots have to stay in the closet.
![Willa Lewis](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1359664846p1/17011734.jpg)
![Rebbie](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.gr-assets.com/users/1430858965p1/6582211.jpg)
High praise. I shall put it on the list.....great review.