Ask a Bookseller: 'American War,' set in the future, reflects aspects of today

Sometimes setting a novel in a different time or place gives an author permission to reflect our contemporary world in a new way. That’s the case for journalist-turned-author Omar El Akkad’s first novel “American War.” Published in 2017, the novel is a go-to recommendation for Claire Margetts of Weller Book Works in Salt Lake City, Utah, even though — or perhaps because — it made her sob at the end. Set in 2074, it tells the story of the Second American Civil War. Climate change has flooded half of Louisiana and led to an American ban on fossil fuels. The American South has seceded in protest. The story follows Sarat Chestnut of Louisiana, who grows up in a camp for displaced persons and becomes embroiled in the war. “It's a book that stays with you. It's astounding; it's sublime,” says Margetts. She says she couldn’t stop thinking about this novel throughout the past few years as its tales of plague, civil unrest and war seemed to unfold before her eyes. The characters are powerful, she says, and there are beautiful moments along with the darkness. El Akkad has since published a second novel, “What Strange Paradise,” in the summer of 2021.