Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Ben Fountain

If a bullet’s going to get you, it’s already been fired
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain (eBook ISBN 9780857864390) book cover

Available as eBook, Downloadable audio

Now a major motion picture directed by Oscar-winning director Ang Lee

His whole nation is celebrating what is the worst day of his life

Nineteen-year-old Billy Lynn is home from Iraq. And he’s a hero. Billy and the rest of Bravo Company were filmed defeating Iraqi insurgents in a ferocious firefight. Now Bravo’s three minutes of extreme bravery is a YouTube sensation and the Bush Administration has sent them on a nationwide Victory Tour.

During the final hours of the tour Billy will mix with the rich and powerful, endure the politics and praise of his fellow Americans - and fall in love. He’ll face hard truths about life and death, family and friendship, honour and duty.

Tomorrow he must go back to war.


“Brilliant … a book for our times”
observer

See more reviews

“Astonishingly brilliant”
Bernard Cornwell
mail On Sunday

“Spectacular … an exhilarating rush”
sunday Times

“Funny, damning, devastating”
independent

“Vivid, resonant, thundering”
financial Times


Ben Fountain

Ben Fountain is the author of the acclaimed short-story collection Brief Encounters with Che Guevaraand a debut novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and the 2012 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2012 National Book Award. In addition, he has received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, an O. Henry Award and two Pushcart Prizes. He was also shortlisted for the International Author of the Year Award in 2012.

His fiction has been published in Harper’s, The Paris Review, Zoetrope: All-Story and Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, and his nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times among other publications. He lives in Dallas, Texas.


Ben Fountain reads from Billy Lynn’s Longtime Walk at the 2012 National Book Awards Finalists’ Reading. (It won the the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.)

The trailer for the Ang Lee adaptation of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, based on the novel by Ben Fountain


In These Collections