In a future where sweeping civil conflict has forced America's young people to flee its borders, Ron Patterson begins to imagine a stable life for himself, but when political divisions become resurgent, he is suddenly on dangerous and uncertain ground.
... deeply intriguing ... a tense and often beautiful work of reflection on the American present ... What’s more interesting in “Little America” is an idea Kalfus repeats often: that the displaced Americans have a 'look' and way of being that sets them apart from the locals. Nostalgic for the consumerism of home, they build crude replicas of big-box retailers, complete with their familiar color schemes. They share a passion for walking dogs. 'People wore their clothes in the American style,' Kalfus writes, 'and their faces were recognizably American.' But if the country they came from was a global melting pot, what does an 'American' face look like? One wishes Kalfus had explored this idea further. Race and class conflicts are at the heart of the real-life disorder Americans are living, but Kalfus elides those differences in this work. Still, 2 A.M. in Little America is a highly readable, taut novel. It pulls the reader into its world, and suggests that many interesting human complications await us at the end of the story called the United States of America.
Though imperiled by re-emergent militias, a needful policeman, and the reappearance of another maybe-familiar face, Ron keeps on surviving, clinging to dreams of a home that no longer exists. As it progresses, his tale becomes a potent warning about the consequences of ideological fervor. Heartbreaking and sobering, the dystopian novel 2 A.M. in Little America has the makings of a modern classic.
Kalfus has taken on two huge themes — the destructive nature of political tribalism and the alienation of the refugee — in a very slim novel. Unfortunately, while the book provides some incisive commentary on both topics, neither is fully expounded upon. In particular, the details of the civil war — presented through found documents rather than personal accounts, and feeling cribbed from dystopian predecessors like Atwood and McCarthy — as horrific as they are, lack immediacy. The war and its atrocities are already treated as history by the refugees, which puts distance between them and the reader ... The author is more successful in bringing a new perspective on the plight of refugees to an American audience. By making a U.S. citizen the nationless wanderer, the novel is aimed squarely at Americans who can’t imagine ever suffering such displacement ... There is poignancy in Ron’s plight as he struggles to see the world around him, even to the point of not recognizing faces that should be familiar. His story has more power early in the book, as he pushes through his own fog to create a life, than it does later on, when he’s dragged into the proxy sectarianism of Little America ... In the end, the social commentary in this novel is particularly sharp, and there is much to contemplate, though its broader context is sometimes a distraction rather than a benefit. The dissolution of the United States and the end of American exceptionalism feels all too credible in Kalfus’ hands. But much like Ron, the reader may come away a bit disoriented by the story itself ... Kalfus has taken on two huge themes — the destructive nature of political tribalism and the alienation of the refugee — in a very slim novel. Unfortunately, while the book provides some incisive commentary on both topics, neither is fully expounded upon. In particular, the details of the civil war — presented through found documents rather than personal accounts, and feeling cribbed from dystopian predecessors like Atwood and McCarthy — as horrific as they are, lack immediacy. The war and its atrocities are already treated as history by the refugees, which puts distance between them and the reader ... The author is more successful in bringing a new perspective on the plight of refugees to an American audience. By making a U.S. citizen the nationless wanderer, the novel is aimed squarely at Americans who can’t imagine ever suffering such displacement ... There is poignancy in Ron’s plight as he struggles to see the world around him, even to the point of not recognizing faces that should be familiar. His story has more power early in the book, as he pushes through his own fog to create a life, than it does later on, when he’s dragged into the proxy sectarianism of Little America ... In the end, the social commentary in this novel is particularly sharp, and there is much to contemplate, though its broader context is sometimes a distraction rather than a benefit. The dissolution of the United States and the end of American exceptionalism feels all too credible in Kalfus’ hands. But much like Ron, the reader may come away a bit disoriented by the story itself.
