American War

Sarat Chestnut is six years old and living in Louisiana when the Second American Civil War begins in 2074. Oil is outlawed, much of the state lies underwater, and unmanned drones patrol the sky. Even a child knows these facts as ordinary life.

When her father is killed, her family is sent to Camp Patience, a camp for displaced persons. Sarat grows up there, shaped by the place and the war around it. Not everyone inside the camp is who they claim to be.

A mysterious functionary befriends her and, over time, turns her into a deadly instrument of war. The choices she makes carry heavy consequences for her family and her country. Those consequences reach across generations of strangers and relatives.

This is speculative fiction set in a near-future United States, following one girl from childhood into adulthood against a divided nation. It also imagines a plague alongside the war. The book asks what could happen if America turned its harshest policies and deadliest weapons on itself. It reads as a dark, serious novel in which a family is caught in the middle of the conflict.