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2 A.M. in Little America
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 stray dog, observes his neighbors, and lands a repairman job that allows him to move through the city quietly. But this newfound security, too, 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.
Brimming with mystery, suspense, and Kalfus's distinctive comic irony, 2 A.M. in Little America poses several questions vital to the current moment: What happens when privilege is reversed? Who is watching and why? How do tribalized politics disrupt our ability to distinguish what is true and what is not? This is a story for our time--gripping, unsettling, prescient--by one of our most acclaimed novelists.
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 stray dog, observes his neighbors, and lands a repairman job that allows him to move through the city quietly. But this newfound security, too, 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.
Brimming with mystery, suspense, and Kalfus's distinctive comic irony, 2 A.M. in Little America poses several questions vital to the current moment: What happens when privilege is reversed? Who is watching and why? How do tribalized politics disrupt our ability to distinguish what is true and what is not? This is a story for our time--gripping, unsettling, prescient--by one of our most acclaimed novelists.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 10, 2022
95 people are currently reading
4389 people want to read
About the author
Ken Kalfus
31 books74 followersHe was born in the Bronx, NY and grew up in Plainview, Long Island.
Kalfus started college at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, but dropped out after the first year. He attended various other universities including the New School for Social Research in Manhattan and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Kalfus started writing at an early age.
Kalfus started college at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, but dropped out after the first year. He attended various other universities including the New School for Social Research in Manhattan and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Kalfus started writing at an early age.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 235 reviews
July 10, 2022
This one flunked the 100-page test. It starts out as a book about (weird) relationships, in which a man spies on a naked woman through a roof window (he's a repairman of equipment up there) and becomes obsessed with meeting her. Then, somewhere along the line, the woman (women, actually, as he confuses look-alikes) plot line vanishes as we get into some secret police state stuff in an enclave of post-America Americans still fighting their little wars in a foreign land. I think Kalfus was going for a post blue vs. red America theme, but the repetitious and meandering plot left me shrugging (and scratching my head).
I gave my head a break and closed the book at 1 a.m.
I gave my head a break and closed the book at 1 a.m.
July 2, 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 reminiscent to a degree of Udo Berger's narration in Bolano's The Third Reich -- in this, it's Ron Patterson's relayed account of his experience as a refugee in various unnamed countries, one with a city by a bay and a beguiling brief love based in part on a half-seen voyeuristic vision of a woman he never actually meets. Everything symbolizes affiliation with one or the other warring American faction, how you wear your hair, hat, or watch or lace your sneakers, and it seemed like the two women in the first section represent to a degree the illusory dream of America, its ideal unreal half-seen state as home of liberty and justice of all, and its reality fragmented into competing, combustible, combative narratives. There's a good deal of apparently intentional disorientation in the first section but all that's dispelled by second section, when Ron resides in an American enclave in some far-flung country, a shantytown on the outskirts of a city maybe somewhere like Mongolia or Malaysia or, more so, a composite of countries on the other side of the world right now, far from this country where our allegiance to Target or Walmart potentially marks one's political affiliation. Effectively relays the difficulties one has to not seem conspicuously partisan. Knowing the author from when I lived in Philadelphia, I enjoyed picturing Ken picking up the dog park a block or two from where he lives and incorporating it into his fiction, biking around town, maybe down to the Navy Yard and then around past the Target and Walmart on Columbus Blvd, during riots and demonstrations in June 2020, checking out the standoff over the Columbus statue in Marconi Plaza etc, the president calling out Philadelphia for its role as a "sanctuary city" for refugees, and then imagining how this might all play out in some not-too-distant future after the country's definitive fall. It's not quite a satirical novel but there's some amusement throughout -- a line for example about how despite all the warring-related horrors "the Division of Motor Vehicles abides," and a fantastic evocative sensory-activating description of an omni-critical steaming, pillaring pile of dog poo.
May 15, 2022
Ron Patterson is an American refugee, fleeing the country as it descended into civil war and turmoil. Along with his fellow countrymen, he ends up in one of the few countries left willing to accept American refugees, confined to a ghetto known as Little America. Reality for Ron is obscured and unfamiliar, his experience as a refugee is a distorted mirror of our reality; the book never revealing the full truth of the matter. Things only get more mysterious as he is roped into being a police informant and a strangely familiar female classmate reappears. Partisanship and political rivalries resurface in the ghetto and Ron must struggle to make sense of everything.
Ken Kalfus has written this commentary on current American politics without having the characters ever set foot in America and yet it struggles to rise above its central conceit as an allegory for the present day. Aggressively vague in its setting and its backstory, Kalfus forces the reader to infer how exactly the American experiment failed. Obviously by refusing to name any location or historical event, Kalfus maintains his story’s timelessness but after a while, it becomes intentionally obfuscating. Ron Patterson becomes a cypher, unable to interact with his countrymen because of his aggressive non-partisanship – he is all things to all men and yet remains a stranger in a strange land, never finding his way home.
The conceit of this novel is fascinating – American privilege is upended and those who benefited from it the most must suffer as migrants suffer now – and yet the novel itself becomes a victim of this conceit. Delphic and eerie prose are no substitutes for developed characters and substantive plot development. Little America suffers from much the same problems as Big America, which Kalfus illuminates presciently. Nevertheless, it remains too detached from the reader, too little-developed in its execution.
Ken Kalfus has written this commentary on current American politics without having the characters ever set foot in America and yet it struggles to rise above its central conceit as an allegory for the present day. Aggressively vague in its setting and its backstory, Kalfus forces the reader to infer how exactly the American experiment failed. Obviously by refusing to name any location or historical event, Kalfus maintains his story’s timelessness but after a while, it becomes intentionally obfuscating. Ron Patterson becomes a cypher, unable to interact with his countrymen because of his aggressive non-partisanship – he is all things to all men and yet remains a stranger in a strange land, never finding his way home.
The conceit of this novel is fascinating – American privilege is upended and those who benefited from it the most must suffer as migrants suffer now – and yet the novel itself becomes a victim of this conceit. Delphic and eerie prose are no substitutes for developed characters and substantive plot development. Little America suffers from much the same problems as Big America, which Kalfus illuminates presciently. Nevertheless, it remains too detached from the reader, too little-developed in its execution.
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 were from our narrator's home town. I never understand the narrative trick of all the women in the book being the same woman (or possibly two women?) from his hometown and why our narrator never seemed to recognize any of them, or recognized them too much... I didn't understand why the "natives" in his foreign lands were cartoonish (unless that's underscoring the American perspective?) But mostly I didn't care. For a dystopia about America collapse and the phenomenon of reverse mass migration etc., this managed the almost impossible trick of being quite boring. (Our affectless narrator kept reminding me of L'Etranger, but not in a good way). Oh well, at least it was short.
January 1, 2023
This book is speculative fiction that imagines a future in which the US has been split apart by a civil war based on the political divide. Many Americans are forced to relocate to other countries. Protagonist Ron Patterson is an American refugee. He finds work as an inspecting and repairing mysterious electrical boxes. Ron keeps a low profile but eventually gets prevailed upon by local authorities to provide information about the two groups of Americans, who have carried their divisive politics to the new (unnamed) country. He learns more about horrible war atrocities committed in his hometown. It is structured in two segments. The first provides Ron Patterson’s experience in the US prior to fleeing, and the second shows his life as a refugee in the new country. The two are tied together by an enigmatic woman.
This book is intentionally vague. Ron has a rare condition that inhibits facial recognition (prosopagnosia). The storyline does not specify the causes of the war, the countries involved in accepting refugees, or even whether or not the characters are the same people referenced in earlier scenes. Ron is an extreme version of an unreliable narrator. He confuses the women in his life to a degree that it occasionally provides comic relief.
The author does a great job of portraying Americans as refugees. They live in an area that is designated “Little America.” The host country’s population has trouble distinguishing one American from another. They are treated as a lesser class. It turns the tables, and I found it an extremely effective technique. The prose is atmospheric, bordering on surrealistic. The climax of the book involves Ron’s espionage for local authorities. He must eventually choose among unpleasant alternatives. The author takes America to task for our divisiveness. It is a social commentary approached from an atypical perspective.
This book is intentionally vague. Ron has a rare condition that inhibits facial recognition (prosopagnosia). The storyline does not specify the causes of the war, the countries involved in accepting refugees, or even whether or not the characters are the same people referenced in earlier scenes. Ron is an extreme version of an unreliable narrator. He confuses the women in his life to a degree that it occasionally provides comic relief.
The author does a great job of portraying Americans as refugees. They live in an area that is designated “Little America.” The host country’s population has trouble distinguishing one American from another. They are treated as a lesser class. It turns the tables, and I found it an extremely effective technique. The prose is atmospheric, bordering on surrealistic. The climax of the book involves Ron’s espionage for local authorities. He must eventually choose among unpleasant alternatives. The author takes America to task for our divisiveness. It is a social commentary approached from an atypical perspective.
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 everything vague in terms of the country/ies he has his character living in. There's also very little in the way of character interaction (maybe 10% of the book given over to actual conversations) and what plot there is is plodding and boring. It's not so much that Kalfus shouldn't write a near-future dystopia, more that his approach here was deeply problematic. No one is perfect and anyone can serve up something well below their best, and unfortunately this has been the case here.
May 16, 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 a new country that will take me; I have no hope of returning home. I felt like this novel would present a very interesting perspective since it relates to my (undeniably small) demographic.
Frankly, 2 A.M. in Little America is a heroically self-censored and narrow view of an American migrant experience, or that of a migrant relocated due to civil unrest. Each page of the book is an incredible exposé on the author's lack of research to back up the protagonist's perspective. Shallow and unrealistic, it reads like the summary of a story that the author was too lazy and spineless to actually write. The whole premise is constantly begging to be re-written and further explored by a more competent writer. It's a story of lazy generalizations that almost has a story-like-element to it at the end of the book. Almost.
The idea behind the story itself is very good: What if the current state of affairs in America (and elsewhere) got so bad that the average person was forced to flee abroad to live? It’s a very interesting topic because it does have a looming realistic quality to it; with many millennial-aged people having already fled America due to political shortcomings and issues like housing, employment, and student debt. What disappointed me most about the book was that the author had a gem of an idea and squandered it.
The descriptions of roughly everything in the world are left needlessly vague, as if the author is afraid of specificity. Countries are unnamed, dishes vaguely referenced, languages sort of described. The absolute lack of detail renders this book a lot more boring than it should have been. You will need to drink a very strong cup of “indigenous hot caffeinated drink” to keep yourself awake to the end - not that it's even worth finishing.
I wanted to put this book down after the first section, but I wasted $10 on it. Instead of interest, I was driven by a compulsion to finish this book - in desperate hopes that the author could receive the following message: Grow a backbone and push the envelope. If you are going to write a book, you actually need to write something.
Frankly, 2 A.M. in Little America is a heroically self-censored and narrow view of an American migrant experience, or that of a migrant relocated due to civil unrest. Each page of the book is an incredible exposé on the author's lack of research to back up the protagonist's perspective. Shallow and unrealistic, it reads like the summary of a story that the author was too lazy and spineless to actually write. The whole premise is constantly begging to be re-written and further explored by a more competent writer. It's a story of lazy generalizations that almost has a story-like-element to it at the end of the book. Almost.
The idea behind the story itself is very good: What if the current state of affairs in America (and elsewhere) got so bad that the average person was forced to flee abroad to live? It’s a very interesting topic because it does have a looming realistic quality to it; with many millennial-aged people having already fled America due to political shortcomings and issues like housing, employment, and student debt. What disappointed me most about the book was that the author had a gem of an idea and squandered it.
The descriptions of roughly everything in the world are left needlessly vague, as if the author is afraid of specificity. Countries are unnamed, dishes vaguely referenced, languages sort of described. The absolute lack of detail renders this book a lot more boring than it should have been. You will need to drink a very strong cup of “indigenous hot caffeinated drink” to keep yourself awake to the end - not that it's even worth finishing.
I wanted to put this book down after the first section, but I wasted $10 on it. Instead of interest, I was driven by a compulsion to finish this book - in desperate hopes that the author could receive the following message: Grow a backbone and push the envelope. If you are going to write a book, you actually need to write something.
November 28, 2022
This is a dystopia set in the (very) near future. It recounts the story of a man named Ron Patterson, who grew up in an ordinary town in America and shortly after graduating high school fled from it as a refugee to escape being either a victim of or forcibly coopted into the violence of the battling militias. So many Americans have fled the failing country that there are few nations in the world still willing to accept American refugees. As an immigrant, Ron keeps his head down, avoids at all costs being drawn into any type of politics, and avoids to the extent possible saying that he is from America. He works at the low-paying jobs available to immigrants and lives in sparse & shared immigrant housing when he can find it.
The first part of the novel finds Ron in his later 20s, about 10 years after leaving America, living in an unnamed country that was not his first destination, but where he has a job he is happy with and where he hopes to remain forever. After several years in the country, he becomes friends with a woman who is also an immigrant. Both Ron and the woman are forced to leave the country when it expels all immigrants, and they cannot find a country to which they can travel together because they carry passports from different countries of origin.
The second part of the novel opens with Ron in his 40s and in another country where he has been for just a few months. He has found a bed in a migrant encampment warehouse and has obtained a job. Before long, he encounters the woman he had befriended so long ago. As before, he tries to keep his head down, but the politics of his country of residence and the politics of the militias from home refuse to leave him alone.
This story floored me with its ability to make real for Americans what it feels like to be a refugee, living at the whim of powers over which one has no control and subject to deportation at any moment. The tenuousness of shelter, food, clothing, not to mention the near-impossibility of having friends or any long-term relationship or raising a family is palpable.
I found this to be very sad. I am mystified by the fly pages and cover blurbs that mention "comedic irony" and "riotously funny" because I did not encounter a single line that caused me to chuckle. For me, this is a story of desperation.
The first part of the novel finds Ron in his later 20s, about 10 years after leaving America, living in an unnamed country that was not his first destination, but where he has a job he is happy with and where he hopes to remain forever. After several years in the country, he becomes friends with a woman who is also an immigrant. Both Ron and the woman are forced to leave the country when it expels all immigrants, and they cannot find a country to which they can travel together because they carry passports from different countries of origin.
The second part of the novel opens with Ron in his 40s and in another country where he has been for just a few months. He has found a bed in a migrant encampment warehouse and has obtained a job. Before long, he encounters the woman he had befriended so long ago. As before, he tries to keep his head down, but the politics of his country of residence and the politics of the militias from home refuse to leave him alone.
This story floored me with its ability to make real for Americans what it feels like to be a refugee, living at the whim of powers over which one has no control and subject to deportation at any moment. The tenuousness of shelter, food, clothing, not to mention the near-impossibility of having friends or any long-term relationship or raising a family is palpable.
I found this to be very sad. I am mystified by the fly pages and cover blurbs that mention "comedic irony" and "riotously funny" because I did not encounter a single line that caused me to chuckle. For me, this is a story of desperation.
January 1, 2023
A near-future dystopian American has been torn apart by civil war, its economy ravaged by the ensuing chaos. Many Americans have been forced to flee to other countries, though most nations have closed off immigration to these "overly emotional" and often low-skilled people who speak no languages other than English.
This is the setup for an insightful but often tonally ambiguous novel by Ken Kalfus. He skillfully handles turning the whole question of immigration on its head. I've not read Kalfus before, but am impressed by the level of imagination on display here. There were a few aspects of the book that I couldn't get a read on, which bothered me a bit (e.g., why the main character can't seem to recognize/differentiate women when he doesn't seem to have the same level of difficulty recognizing men). But overall this is thought-provoking work.
This is the setup for an insightful but often tonally ambiguous novel by Ken Kalfus. He skillfully handles turning the whole question of immigration on its head. I've not read Kalfus before, but am impressed by the level of imagination on display here. There were a few aspects of the book that I couldn't get a read on, which bothered me a bit (e.g., why the main character can't seem to recognize/differentiate women when he doesn't seem to have the same level of difficulty recognizing men). But overall this is thought-provoking work.
May 7, 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 waning of late, is exposed for the arrogant elitism it is and those able to leave take the risk to do so, the cringe-worthy reality of trying to find a country that will take you becomes haunting. It puts world-wide migration under the microscope--it can happen everywhere.
May 28, 2022
I was reminded of Kafka's "Metamorphosis"as I began reading "2AM in Little America" as the narrator, Ron Patterson, has found himself, an American, not transformed into a cockroach, but into a lowly migrant in a foreign land. Set in the not too distant future, the partisan clashes in America have broken it apart sending its citizens fleeing for their lives to other countries...any country that will take them in for however long.
In an effort to survive, Ron becomes a maintenance worker for security devices. Early on in the narrative, he finds himself on a rooftop repairing a device when a woman emerges from the shower in a rooftop apartment. Looking at the reflection of a woman in a mirror, he becomes transfixed. He obsesses over this woman and sees her everywhere as he has a condition which inhibits facial recognition. The reflection in the mirror and the insecurity of facial recognition are a repeated theme throughout as nothing is certain in this new world...or, in the former one for that matter.
The story lines grabs you from the first page making this a quick, but insightful, read into the dystopia of our current reality and how much worse it can become.
In an effort to survive, Ron becomes a maintenance worker for security devices. Early on in the narrative, he finds himself on a rooftop repairing a device when a woman emerges from the shower in a rooftop apartment. Looking at the reflection of a woman in a mirror, he becomes transfixed. He obsesses over this woman and sees her everywhere as he has a condition which inhibits facial recognition. The reflection in the mirror and the insecurity of facial recognition are a repeated theme throughout as nothing is certain in this new world...or, in the former one for that matter.
The story lines grabs you from the first page making this a quick, but insightful, read into the dystopia of our current reality and how much worse it can become.
May 25, 2022
A frustrating read. Not one that isn't worthwhile, but frustrating. The decision to make everything extremely generic or ephemeral is necessary to make what seems to be Kalfus' main point possible, but can be maddening at other times.
By creating an extremely amorphous, generic American civil war leading to a refugee exodus–the novel seems to imply a bougie Democratic Target-worshipping bloc in mortal combat with a reactionary Walmart-worshipping bloc–the book really lays bare to the American/Western reader that you are no better than refugees and immigrants. Everything about them that you think is backwards, or strangely religious, or ignorant: that could easily be you, were the situations reversed. It's so easy to be a stranger in a strange land. It's easy to be biased against newcomers struggling to come to grips with how they got there. It's easy to be misunderstood. I think the book makes a good case for recognizing the humanity in everyone and acknowledging how immensely jarring and damaging the dislocation of these conflicts can be.
However.
It can also render the book wispy and, to me, intensely irritating. In an effort to abstract these concepts out, Kalfus declares war on proper nouns. Which countries does the main character live in? Which cities? Which continents? American culture and identity is reduced to "hamburgers" as a lame placeholder for ethnic cuisine, and the identification with brands and retailers, which could have been a more full-bodied satire, is half-baked. The protagonist often confuses people in a narrative device that I found to be more annoying than impactful, and it feels particularly uncomfortable since it is most pronounced in reference to female characters.
There is also a catch to completely abstracting things out to 'there was an American civil war with two sides and now they're all living a refugee experience': a complete abdication of any moral judgment. The sides are undefined, but loosely implied. In the current American political climate, where the Democrats are at best feckless centrists but the Republicans are increasingly theocratic and anti-democratic, this feels cowardly. Throwing your hands up and saying 'civil wars are bad and dislocate people', as the book seems to do, also kind of removes agency and humanity from sides that really are persecuted or experience genocide at the hands of another.
By creating an extremely amorphous, generic American civil war leading to a refugee exodus–the novel seems to imply a bougie Democratic Target-worshipping bloc in mortal combat with a reactionary Walmart-worshipping bloc–the book really lays bare to the American/Western reader that you are no better than refugees and immigrants. Everything about them that you think is backwards, or strangely religious, or ignorant: that could easily be you, were the situations reversed. It's so easy to be a stranger in a strange land. It's easy to be biased against newcomers struggling to come to grips with how they got there. It's easy to be misunderstood. I think the book makes a good case for recognizing the humanity in everyone and acknowledging how immensely jarring and damaging the dislocation of these conflicts can be.
However.
It can also render the book wispy and, to me, intensely irritating. In an effort to abstract these concepts out, Kalfus declares war on proper nouns. Which countries does the main character live in? Which cities? Which continents? American culture and identity is reduced to "hamburgers" as a lame placeholder for ethnic cuisine, and the identification with brands and retailers, which could have been a more full-bodied satire, is half-baked. The protagonist often confuses people in a narrative device that I found to be more annoying than impactful, and it feels particularly uncomfortable since it is most pronounced in reference to female characters.
There is also a catch to completely abstracting things out to 'there was an American civil war with two sides and now they're all living a refugee experience': a complete abdication of any moral judgment. The sides are undefined, but loosely implied. In the current American political climate, where the Democrats are at best feckless centrists but the Republicans are increasingly theocratic and anti-democratic, this feels cowardly. Throwing your hands up and saying 'civil wars are bad and dislocate people', as the book seems to do, also kind of removes agency and humanity from sides that really are persecuted or experience genocide at the hands of another.
January 3, 2023
"To be sure that this is what we wanted from each other. I was sure before; now I was reminded how much my idea of htis woman had been a projection of whom I wanted her to be. But what object of romance was not?"
"The names had evidently been chosen because the brands had once meant something. They had each expressed a specific outlook about the world, and we considered our purchases acts of self-expression. In those days, in America, one might have assigned a specific character to a person, quite reliably, by where he or she shopped, and by the brands he or she valued. You could probably tell how he or she voted. Men with guns could tell, too."
"The vistas were as grand as ever, most of the region visible, the enclave no more than another contested patch of American dirt. I couldn't see where the district ended, nor where the adjacent administrative units began, nor the next country over. 'There were no borders,' every astronaut fallaciously observed, after being sent aloft at great expense and effort by the political entity defined by its borders."
"The names had evidently been chosen because the brands had once meant something. They had each expressed a specific outlook about the world, and we considered our purchases acts of self-expression. In those days, in America, one might have assigned a specific character to a person, quite reliably, by where he or she shopped, and by the brands he or she valued. You could probably tell how he or she voted. Men with guns could tell, too."
"The vistas were as grand as ever, most of the region visible, the enclave no more than another contested patch of American dirt. I couldn't see where the district ended, nor where the adjacent administrative units began, nor the next country over. 'There were no borders,' every astronaut fallaciously observed, after being sent aloft at great expense and effort by the political entity defined by its borders."
January 26, 2023
A truism Judge John Hodgman often cites is “Specificity is the soul of narrative.” If everything in your story is vague, if it has no discernible setting, if all the females the main character interacts with look the same, if you can’t be bothered to write his dog’s name but you go on and on about a massive poop it’s taking, then there’s nothing for the reader to buy in to, no reality to grasp, no stakes, and no soul. I’m only glad this book was so short, because it was a waste of time.
August 24, 2022
Feels like a book you’d say you enjoyed if you want to seem smart in front of your girlfriends college friends
May 3, 2022
This is an odd book, and something I want to read again and be able to analyze. It reads very similar to 1984 by George Orwell.
The book is odd and that when you’re reading it it feels the same as looking at a Salvador Dali painting. The different scenes of our main characters life fold into each other using a looking glass-like effect. Everyone in his new life, equals somebody In his old life.
The book is odd and that when you’re reading it it feels the same as looking at a Salvador Dali painting. The different scenes of our main characters life fold into each other using a looking glass-like effect. Everyone in his new life, equals somebody In his old life.
May 17, 2022
This could have been—or should have been—a short story…there’s one interesting idea that’s exhaustively and repetitively drawn out, such that this very brief novel drags on and on. I wanted it to be better, but this turned out not to be for me.
April 30, 2022
Bummed to say I didn’t love this book. It felt incomplete to me - and like it didn’t know what it wanted to be or what it wanted to say. It is kind of a dystopia or speculative fiction, in which crises in America have escalated to the point in which American citizens are now put in the place of being refugees around the world, fleeing from their home. At first I was intrigued by this concept, but after I started reading, I asked myself: if this is intended to make you sympathize with refugees more, why do we need to have Americans becoming refugees to do that? Why aren’t real refugees stories sympathetic and moving enough?
Then, that aside, the rest of the setup felt kind of half-assed. The author chooses not to say the name of the country in which the main character is a refugee, not even giving any indication of traditions, languages, etc to give you a hint of where. One thing that bothered me was instead of referring to customs of the country as “local” or “native,” he chose to say “indigenous” - eg, “the indigenous cockroaches” (referring to the insects). Something about that phrasing just seemed awkward and weird to me.
In trying to describe the past events and tensions in America that led to this refugee crisis (the same tensions that now bubble up in the refugee enclave of Little America), the author makes the reader do a lot of inferring and work to get to what he’s trying to say. I just found myself so confused as to the “events” that he alludes to, like I was missing something or couldn’t make the inference he was betting on.
Finally, the main character was unlikeable and kind of skeevy to me (I’m not sure if that was intentional and you’re not supposed to relate to him, or if I just didn’t like him.) The book opens with him doing maintenance on the rooftop of a building and seeing a woman naked in her shower. He stays and watches her for a long, long time. Then, he meets another woman who he thinks is the woman from the bathroom, befriending her and asking her out for that reason. And when it turns out that she’s not that woman, he tells her the story and is offended when she thinks the story is gross and creepy. Why is he offended? Because he says that they’ve done all manner of freaky sexual activities together so he expects her to not take offense to this story - as if engaging in consensual sexual activities means that she’ll accept his disgusting peeping Tom activity. That put a bad taste in my mouth from the start.
Overall, I did not enjoy this book, and despite its short length, I wouldn’t recommend it. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley.
Then, that aside, the rest of the setup felt kind of half-assed. The author chooses not to say the name of the country in which the main character is a refugee, not even giving any indication of traditions, languages, etc to give you a hint of where. One thing that bothered me was instead of referring to customs of the country as “local” or “native,” he chose to say “indigenous” - eg, “the indigenous cockroaches” (referring to the insects). Something about that phrasing just seemed awkward and weird to me.
In trying to describe the past events and tensions in America that led to this refugee crisis (the same tensions that now bubble up in the refugee enclave of Little America), the author makes the reader do a lot of inferring and work to get to what he’s trying to say. I just found myself so confused as to the “events” that he alludes to, like I was missing something or couldn’t make the inference he was betting on.
Finally, the main character was unlikeable and kind of skeevy to me (I’m not sure if that was intentional and you’re not supposed to relate to him, or if I just didn’t like him.) The book opens with him doing maintenance on the rooftop of a building and seeing a woman naked in her shower. He stays and watches her for a long, long time. Then, he meets another woman who he thinks is the woman from the bathroom, befriending her and asking her out for that reason. And when it turns out that she’s not that woman, he tells her the story and is offended when she thinks the story is gross and creepy. Why is he offended? Because he says that they’ve done all manner of freaky sexual activities together so he expects her to not take offense to this story - as if engaging in consensual sexual activities means that she’ll accept his disgusting peeping Tom activity. That put a bad taste in my mouth from the start.
Overall, I did not enjoy this book, and despite its short length, I wouldn’t recommend it. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley.
January 13, 2023
A provocative take on the migrant experience, with a highly unreliable first-person protagonist and a near-future setting in which the US has become so dysfunctional that many Americans are homeless international pariahs. Part of the 2023 Tournament of Books.
January 5, 2023
This is an immigrant story….except this time the immigrants are Americans. The premise intrigued me and drew me in. Imagine the shoe was on the other foot. What would it be like to flee violence in America and seek asylum in other countries….countries that mostly don’t want you.
That was where the fascination ended for me. Kalfus just doesn’t write in a very interesting manner. I thought there was hope that Ron Patterson and Marlise could become 3 dimensional characters but it never really got there…only Ron running from place to place and being pursued by unidentified operatives. Throw in a bit of absurdity ala dog poop as a metaphor and a woman who looks like every other woman and that’s what Kalfus has given us. It was a big disappointment to me.
That was where the fascination ended for me. Kalfus just doesn’t write in a very interesting manner. I thought there was hope that Ron Patterson and Marlise could become 3 dimensional characters but it never really got there…only Ron running from place to place and being pursued by unidentified operatives. Throw in a bit of absurdity ala dog poop as a metaphor and a woman who looks like every other woman and that’s what Kalfus has given us. It was a big disappointment to me.
July 6, 2022
Ask a simple question . . . "what if Americans had to live like political refugees?" . . . and come up with a mostly plausible but weirdly affectless answer, and you've got "2 A.M. in Little America."
I might be able to discern the intention behind this brief, mannered, confusing book, in which a semi-unnamed narrator describes factional intrigue among American migrants in a stiff, overly stylized fashion that reads like an amateur translation from a foreign language. It's a brilliant conceit that would border on didactic if "Ron" (real name?) didn't keep encountering a former girlfriend in various different guises, like a post-apocalyptic Orlando.
Does it make sense? Um, I think so . . .
For example, I believe "Ron's" fastidious avoidance of any sort of slang or vernacular English is a way to keep the reader from identifying with him, and therefore thinking "2 A.M. in Little America" is some sort of parable or allegory for modern life. No, we're supposed to believe that "2 A.M. in Little America" is the axis of our current downward spiral, the endpoint of the red-blue schism.
Or maybe the formality and factual vacuity of "Ron's" narration is meant to simulate the awkward response you get when you ask the ethnically ambiguous lady emptying your office wastebasket "so . . . where are you from?" She, too, will skimp on the details, assuming you probably won't understand them.
So maybe "2 A.M. in Little America" is a political satire.
I'll be thinking about it for awhile.
I might be able to discern the intention behind this brief, mannered, confusing book, in which a semi-unnamed narrator describes factional intrigue among American migrants in a stiff, overly stylized fashion that reads like an amateur translation from a foreign language. It's a brilliant conceit that would border on didactic if "Ron" (real name?) didn't keep encountering a former girlfriend in various different guises, like a post-apocalyptic Orlando.
Does it make sense? Um, I think so . . .
For example, I believe "Ron's" fastidious avoidance of any sort of slang or vernacular English is a way to keep the reader from identifying with him, and therefore thinking "2 A.M. in Little America" is some sort of parable or allegory for modern life. No, we're supposed to believe that "2 A.M. in Little America" is the axis of our current downward spiral, the endpoint of the red-blue schism.
Or maybe the formality and factual vacuity of "Ron's" narration is meant to simulate the awkward response you get when you ask the ethnically ambiguous lady emptying your office wastebasket "so . . . where are you from?" She, too, will skimp on the details, assuming you probably won't understand them.
So maybe "2 A.M. in Little America" is a political satire.
I'll be thinking about it for awhile.
May 18, 2022
_2 A. M. in Little America_, like all of Ken Kalfus’s work, is expertly crafted. His protagonist has left a nightmare version of America, albeit a future America that isn’t unimaginable, and works in several foreign countries as a migrant repairing security equipment, avoiding attention and political sides. Thus, in his narrative, which often keeps its tensions just out of range, Kalfus mirrors the uncertainty of his protagonist’s perceptions and the mismatch between his memory and the details of the present moment. But when his protagonist is simply documenting the beauty of his environment, Kalfus gives us details as poignant and profound as they are literary and luxurious. Through his characters, Kalfus helps us understand that while attaining absolute clarity and moral precision and perhaps even a stable identity are elusive at best, hope is manifest in the detailed recollection of the beauty we experience.
June 28, 2022
Hugely enjoyable, great use of language, loved the sense of not knowing (what was going on, who was who, what was happening) that was a constant through the book. Reminded me, for obvious reasons, of Famous Men Who Never Lived, in a good way.
Not for everyone, and I could see how this character's passivity and the deliberate vagueness with regards to location and politics could frustrate many readers. But it really worked for me. I could also see how the book could leave a bad taste in one's mouth, by taking very real refugee crises and putting Americans at the center of it; similar to people's critiques of The Handmaid's Tale.
Not for everyone, and I could see how this character's passivity and the deliberate vagueness with regards to location and politics could frustrate many readers. But it really worked for me. I could also see how the book could leave a bad taste in one's mouth, by taking very real refugee crises and putting Americans at the center of it; similar to people's critiques of The Handmaid's Tale.
February 10, 2023
Rounding up a star because it means well but I did not like this. The vagueness seems to be aimed at achieving a universalness but it comes across to me as reductionist and simplistic, capable of only banal insights such as that highly contested issues in a society can appear baffling to complete outsiders from other societies. Its refusal to countenance the idea that one side in a civil conflict could bear more responsibility or be more unjust than the other, instead wholly embracing a bothsidesism, also does not sit well.
If you told me that ‘Ken Kalfus’ was a pen name for Chuck Todd, I would not be that surprised.
If you told me that ‘Ken Kalfus’ was a pen name for Chuck Todd, I would not be that surprised.
May 21, 2022
I don't understand the negative reviews. Yes, there is an unfinished quality to the book. It leaves itself open for a third act that you can write yourself. Isn't that part of the conceit of America? Being able to write your own story. The main character finally gets their chance to have a story after the failings of the American conceit stopped him. It's a story of arrested development, not just of the main character, but of a nation and an idea and the loneliness and danger that follow those who leave. I thought it was simply and beautifully written.
August 21, 2022
Confusing. Stupid. I hated it. Way, WAY too vague.
January 19, 2023
This was a trippy little book that I enjoyed more than I thought I would at the start. Ron Patterson is an American refugee after civil war and atrocities committed in the name of war sent millions of Americans fleeing in search of refuge. The first part of the book is in one such refuge where Ron makes a lady friend, a fellow refugee, but soon the country changes laws to restrict the number of immigrants and both must find a new country as the number of countries accepting Americans becomes quite small. The second part is in one of the few countries accepting Americans causing a influx large enough to create an enclave called Little America.
The book is a bit trippy as Ron can't seem to recognize any faces, not even ones seen regularly, so he is a bit unreliable relying on others to identify themselves to him. I really enjoyed the thoughtful speculation of Americans in need of refuge rather than the reluctant acceptant or ruthless denier. Ron goes through the difficulties of trying to stay safe while unwanted in a new country and managing with a life interrupted. It is interesting that Kalfus delves into Americans bringing the conflict with them into the enclave, still playing out the partisan politics and violence.
I enjoyed this thoughtful piece of speculative fiction. Ron's dog is the best. While I didn't quite understand all the parts included in the story, I did appreciate perspectives.
The book is a bit trippy as Ron can't seem to recognize any faces, not even ones seen regularly, so he is a bit unreliable relying on others to identify themselves to him. I really enjoyed the thoughtful speculation of Americans in need of refuge rather than the reluctant acceptant or ruthless denier. Ron goes through the difficulties of trying to stay safe while unwanted in a new country and managing with a life interrupted. It is interesting that Kalfus delves into Americans bringing the conflict with them into the enclave, still playing out the partisan politics and violence.
I enjoyed this thoughtful piece of speculative fiction. Ron's dog is the best. While I didn't quite understand all the parts included in the story, I did appreciate perspectives.
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March 31, 2024Gave up 80 pages in
January 11, 2023
A snooze.
November 2, 2022
A dystopian novel that echoes reality a bit too closely for comfort.
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