2 A.M. in Little America, Ken Kalfus
2 A.M. in Little America, Ken Kalfus
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
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2 A.M. in Little America

Author: Ken Kalfus

Narrator: BJ Harrison

Unabridged: 6 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/10/2022


Synopsis

From "an important writer in every sense" (David Foster Wallace), a novel that imagines a future in which sweeping civil conflict has forced America's young people to flee its borders, into an unwelcoming world.

One such American is Ron Patterson, who finds himself on distant shores, working as a repairman and sharing a room with other refugees. In an unnamed city wedged between ocean and lush mountainous forest, Ron can almost imagine a stable life for himself. Especially when he makes the first friend he has had in years—a mysterious migrant named Marlise, who bears a striking resemblance to a onetime classmate.

Nearly a decade later—after anti-migrant sentiment has put their whirlwind intimacy and asylum to an end—Ron is living in "Little America," an enclave of migrants in one of the few countries still willing to accept them. Here, among reminders of his past life, he again begins to feel that he may have found a home. Ron adopts a dog, observes his neighbors, and lands a repairman job that allows him to move through the city quietly. But this newfound security is quickly jeopardized, as resurgent political divisions threaten the fabric of Little America. Tapped as an informant against the rise of militant gangs and contending with the appearance of a strangely familiar woman, Ron is suddenly on dangerous and uncertain ground.

About Ken Kalfus

Ken Kalfus is the author of 2 A.M. in Little America. He is also the author of three other novels-Equilateral; A Disorder Peculiar to the Country, a finalist for the National Book Award; and The Commissariat of Enlightenment-and the story collections Thirst and Pu-239 and Other Russian Fantasies, the latter a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the basis for the HBO film Pu-239. He lives in Philadelphia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lee on July 02, 2022

A dark, visionary extrapolation of the past few years into the future a few decades, although nothing feels particularly futuristic or "dystopian" about it. The primary lingering impression is its emphasis on language/exposition (over dialogue/dramatization), its steady, flowing, precise tone remini......more

Goodreads review by Elaine on January 21, 2023

Wow this was bad. Heavy handed, overly allusive and utterly incomprehensible all at the same time. I never understood why all of the exiles from American Civil War II (the Target side vs. the other big box store side - us vs. them, but we're equally bad - OK....) in weirdly unspecific foreign lands......more

Goodreads review by Guy on May 15, 2022

Kalfus is one of my favourite writers and I was eagerly anticipating this latest work of his. Unfortunately, 2am in Little America is by far his weakest book. By the time I was perhaps a third of the way through this 230 page novel, I was uneasy. I think the primary issue is Kalfus' decision to keep......more

Goodreads review by Ben on May 15, 2022

I picked up this book after reading some (underserved) praise by the New York Times Book Review. 2 A.M. in Little America piqued my interest because I'm an American migrant worker who's had to travel between many countries to find a niche. Recently laws in my current country have put me the move for......more

Goodreads review by Maren on May 07, 2022

This book made me very uncomfortable---because the scenarios of a future after a civil conflict so dire that America's youth needs to emigrate to a safer environment, is not as far-fetched as I would like to believe. When the tables are turned so that America's exceptionalism, which has clearly been......more