... 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.

Kalfus has a gift for penetrating to the core of current events and presenting issues in a provocative way. If anxiety is a state you want literature to engender in you, or you just like a challenging read, you’ll be happy to know that Kalfus succeeds again, this time with a quietly dystopian novel that presents an unsettling portrait of a humbled America as seen through the eyes of a migrant who is a not entirely reliable narrator ... At times, Kalfus is too coy. A great way to build tension is to withhold information, but an excellent way to destroy it is to extend a mystery for too long ... often feels like the literary equivalent of an elegant coffee table with one leg slightly shorter than the rest: well constructed but lopsided ... Once it gets going, 2 A.M. in Little America gains considerable momentum on its way to a satisfying if uncertain conclusion.

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.

Kalfus lived in war-torn Belgrade, and this novel captures the simultaneous electricity and tedium of a society galvanized by impending conflict. Kalfus’ grim, sharply on-target drama is brightened by moments of absurdity. Weird, dark, and clever.

Patterson’s flashbacks to his life in America, as well as vivid descriptions of watching partisan divisions grow over time, give the reader a disturbing sense that this could easily happen in our lifetime ... As a reader, it can be difficult to know what can be believed from Paterson’s narration. We are made to share in his loose grip on reality ... poses the seemingly impossible question of what anyone might do in such a situation, which is only impossible until it happens. Nobody expects to become a refugee. Through Patterson, we glance some of the emotions and pressures that might come with these conditions. We’re left wondering—with a tangible sense of urgency—whether or not we are ever in control of our own destiny.

... another tonally intricate triumph ... The book is, as it keeps (nimbly) reminding us, a camera obscura: partly because indirect and tricky, bent, not-quite-trustable views are the nature of things; partly because of Ron's marginal and scorned status; partly because he's a loner; and partly due to an affliction that makes him see resemblances between people that may not be real, Ron can make out reality only indirectly, by way of mirrors and shades, and the image he ends up with is inverted, distorted, deeply mysterious. Then, when America's bitter political split starts to replicate itself even in the ghetto the picture gets murkier, scarier, and more peculiar yet. Kalfus has always worked by ingenious indirection ... Here he does so again, and with similar success, creating a commentary on current American politics that never sets foot in America, takes place in a distant future, and takes pains (as its protagonist does) to avoid the overtly partisan ... A strange, highly compelling tale about what happens when American privilege and insulation get turned inside out.

... subtly provocative ... Ron’s immersion in this changing country becomes an obsessive search for answers about the past, with everyone he meets reminding him of better days and triggering an aching nostalgia, which Kalfus makes emotionally charged. This low-key effort gradually takes hold on the reader.