Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

A Novel

By: Ben Fountain

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

A re-release of this award-winning, critically acclaimed novel just in time for its major motion picture release, directed by Two-time Academy Award® winner Ang Lee, screenplay by Jean-Christophe Castelli and featuring Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Garrett Hedlund, with Vin Diesel and Steve Martin.

A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents--caught on tape by an embedded Fox News crew--has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America’s most sought-after heroes. For the past two weeks, the Bush administration has sent them on a media-intensive nationwide Victory Tour to reinvigorate public support for the war. Now, on this chilly and rainy Thanksgiving, the Bravos are guests of a Dallas football team, slated to be part of the halftime show.

Among the Bravos is Specialist William Lynn, a nineteen-year-old Texas native. Amid clamoring patriots sporting flag pins on their lapels and support our troops bumper stickers on their cars, the Bravos are thrust into the company of the team owner and his coterie of wealthy colleagues; a luscious born-again cheerleader; a veteran Hollywood producer; and supersized pro players eager for a vicarious taste of war. Among these faces Billy sees those of his family--his worried sisters and broken father—and Shroom, the philosophical sergeant who opened Billy’s mind and died in his arms.

Over the course of this day, Billy will begin to understand difficult truths about himself, his country, his struggling family, and his brothers-in-arms-soldiers both dead and alive. In the final few hours before returning to Iraq, Billy will drink and brawl, yearn for home and mourn those missing, face a heart-wrenching decision, and discover pure love and a bitter wisdom far beyond his years.

Poignant, riotously funny, and exquisitely heartbreaking, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk is a searing and powerful novel that has cemented Ben Fountain’s reputation as one of the finest writers of his generation.

Motion Picture Artwork ©2016 CTMG.

©2012 Ben Fountain (P)2012 HarperCollinsPublishers

Great narrator, ok story

I think the only reason i bought this book was because olive wyman was the narrator. He did a great job. The story was a lifetime movie network type, i.e. depressing, but a good story.

Anticlimax

The story's main tension doesn't really seem to turn up until about the last 20% and its resolution comes to quickly selling short it's full potential. I also thought the character development could have been better. Billy's doesn't get the attention it deserves because there are so many, seemingly unimportant, other characters.

Extremely well written and unique!

Not a predictable political screed at all. I don't think I've ever read a book quite like it.

This is Literature.

About the best contemporary writer around. Nails so many things down dead and then brings them right back to life. Having said that this book is not perfect, but it is very well worth the read.

A lot to unpack here...

Outside of the bombastic and often crude humor, there is a tender humility that moved me. Interesting look at the prepackaged life big money has us fighting for.

My favorite book by far

Everything, literally everything. This is my favorite book by far. That’s just my opinion though.

Fortunate Son

Nearly 12 wonderful hours of audio about a day at a Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game which allows the author Ben Fountain to masterfully provide us with a sometime-satirical panoramic view from the seat of Billy Lynn, a U.S. soldier who is flying back to Iraq the following day. He and the fellow members of the heroic Bravo Squad are being recognized as halftime.

We get a cinematic look at

a pro football game;

the war in Iraq and its impact on these young men's lives;

how heroes may be treated after all the hubbub or exploited;

and

our culture generally, and specifically, in movies and the entertainment (movies and music) industry, big time sports, billionaires blow-hards, the overwhelming emphasis on sex in advertising and television and how our society has reached the point that our press covers no-talent trog-GLAM-mites like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton while ignoring legit stories.

There's a bonus: a near-fantasy sequence when Billy meets a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.

Maybe you hadn't heard of Ben Fountain before this brilliant book was published. Pay attention. I'm not capable of quickly using the vocabulary needed to heap worthy praise upon Ben Fountain and "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk."

So I'll say:

DO NOT MISS THIS BOOK!

Know what you are getting

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I am scratching my head over this one. I think it is more a misconception over what I thought I was getting, and the new paperback cover depicts that story better. This is really not a war / military book, it is a Dallas Cowboy Thanksgiving Day book which centers on the experience from the point of view of some US soldiers who are stateside for a short publicity tour. It is not a bad book, just not a good choice for me.

Great performance, ordinary book

While there were flashes of insight and some well-turned phrases, the majority of this book was a bit of a tedious read. Same old, same old relevations about war, America, etc., with a bit of cheerleader fantasy added in. I really did not like the story itself, but I loved the narrator's delivery. He was able to capture each character with an entirely different voice and persona, which made this a far more tolerable listening experience.

Need determination to continue book

It is a good book overall, but the beginning is slow and there's a lot of testosterone driven male conversation which can turn off a woman's interest. if a person can push past that, the author delivers a clean, deep insightful look at how the trauma of war affects a soldier's perspective in society; where he questions the value and worth of the mundane or the values/interests of the common people (who live without the effect of trauma).
The author also puts too many heavy ideas and thoughts, ruminations onto the perspective of the young soldier of 19 years. some of the ideas are possible but authorpushez it too far for it to be believable.
the writer is crisp and deep and has written amazing prose.