![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/51ejhHV4lL-e1522700220795.jpg?resize=260%2C400&ssl=1\")
Underground Books<\/a> is a monthly book club that meets at 6:00 pm on the second Monday of the month at Main. We’re readers of books that are not\u00a0typical book club fare – the subversive, the under-the radar, and the controversial. Every month, I’ll give a preview of what we’re reading, questions the book raises and start a discussion online for those who can’t make in person.\u00a0Welcome to The Underground!<\/em><\/p>\nHello readers! This month’s book is the 2017 novel American War<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Omar El Akkad. Set\u00a0roughly 60 years in the future\u00a0in\u00a0an America ravaged by climate change and a second civil war, it’s a story about the destruction of a nation, a family and a person by war. A cautionary tale that raises serious issues about our current national and global state of affairs, and what the future may hold. A heavy subject, yes, but worth the journey.<\/p>\n Opening in 2075,\u00a0 the earth has warmed, the oceans have enveloped the coasts and submerged what little is left after increasingly severe storms batter the land. In response to multiple environmental disasters across the continent, the federal government – now based in Columbus, Ohio\u00a0– bans the use of fossil fuels. The southern states\u00a0defy the ban, and after a series of terrorist attacks culminating in the assassination of the president, the U.S. is again plunged into civil war.\u00a0\u00a0This is a war of modern times –\u00a0 out-of-control drones, homicide bombers, guerilla warfare, detainment camps and\u00a0biological weapons deployed against an entire state.<\/p>\n The novel follows the Chestnut family of\u00a0flood-prone Louisiana, displaced from their home by the Battles of East Texas\u00a0to an overcrowded refugee camp on the border of Tennessee. Here Sarat Chestnut comes of age among the mundane cruelties of war.\u00a0\u00a0She and her family – her older\u00a0brother Simon, twin sister Dana, and mother Martina – try to make a life for themselves while waiting\u00a0for the end of the war.\u00a0 Sarat, already considered an outsider because of her tall and awkward build, grows rebellious and\u00a0is befriended by a mysterious older man who once fought overseas for the North, or, at least, the North when the country was whole. He feeds her a steady diet of Southern mythos, sending her on a path to become an instrument of revenge.\u00a0\u00a0As the narrator says in the prologue, “This isn’t a story about war. It’s about ruin.”<\/p>\n Assorted musings:<\/em><\/p>\n Quotes I would\u00a0have underlined if it wasn’t a library book:<\/em><\/p>\n “How long ago was this?” she asked. She remembered something Albert Gaines once told her all those years ago in Patience. He said when a Southerner tells you what they’re fighting for, you can agree or disagree, but you can’t ever call it a lie. Right\u00a0or wrong, he said, a man from our country always says exactly what he means , and stands by what he says. You fight the war with guns, you fight the peace with stories. (p. 280)<\/p>\n What do you think? Let me know in the comments! And join us on April 9th at 6:00 at Main to discuss in real life! Next month, we’ll be reading Difficult Women<\/strong> <\/em><\/a>by Roxane Gay – copies available at Main, or pick one up wherever convenient!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Underground Books is a monthly book club that meets at 6:00 pm on the second Monday of the month at Main. We’re readers of books that are not\u00a0typical book club fare – the subversive, the under-the radar, and the controversial. Every month, I’ll give a preview of what we’re reading,[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,8,4504],"tags":[977,4488,229],"class_list":["post-32570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-staff-picks","category-underground-books","tag-book-club","tag-dystopian-fiction","tag-war"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-8tk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32570"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32593,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32570\/revisions\/32593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n“Must have been around ’21 or ’22,” said Gaines.\u00a0 “Around the time they sent us over there for the third time, right around the Fifth Spring.”
\nJoe leaned close to Sarat; he looked at the photograph again. “That’s right,” he said. “I remember, I remember when it was still your guns and our blood.” (p. 139)<\/p>\n
\nEven that, it turned out, was a lie. (p. 278)<\/p>\n