Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

This is a bracing, fearless and uproarious satire of how contemporary war is waged and sold to the American public in the 21^st century.  We get one day in the life of Billy Lynn, a 19-year-old soldier who's on a "Victory Tour" of America during the time of the Iraq war. Having prevailed in a firefight with insurgent Iraqi forces that was filmed by a journalist imbedded in the unit, Billy and his fellow Bravo squad members are now nearing the end of their trip through America, where the government has been using their heroism to drum up support for the war.

The novel takes place on Thanksgiving Day before, during and after a Dallas Cowboys' football game at Texas Stadium, where the Bravos are being feted shortly before they'll have to return to Iraq. Fountain follows a few somewhat thin plot strands - Billy falls in love with a Cowboys cheerleader and considers going AWOL; Bravo Squad runs afoul of some thuggish roadies during a misbegotten halftime show starring Destiny's Child; a film producer tries to put together a deal so that the Bravos can sell their story to Hollywood (Hilary Swank is interested if she can play the lead male role).

Each of those stories works in and of itself, but they function largely as a showcase for Fountain's brutally insightful observations of contemporary America. In Fountain's fairly persuasive view, the American public has been ruthlessly manipulated by the government and the media, which in turn are shamelessly beholden to moneyed, corporate interests. The most powerful figure here is not President George W. Bush, whom one Bravo sergeant likens to a relatively amiable Chase Bank loan officer, or Vice President Dick Cheney, who seems oblivious to the fact that the Bravos regard him as a buffoon, but Norm Oglesby, commander in chief of perhaps the world's most-pampered and best paid fighting force: the Dallas Cowboys.

Billy Lynn and the Bravos are made to endure photo ops and meet-and-greets with condescending members of the Cowboys' brass and bloodthirsty, dunderheaded athletes; they are subjected to the unsolicited advice and fulsome praise of Cowboys fans who seem awed by the soldiers, yet somehow less so than they would be by, say, Roger Staubach.

After all the false admiration, the showboating and the inside look at what fame buys you—absolutely nothing--going back to Iraq doesn't seem like such a bad deal to poor Billy.