Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
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.
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.
Praise for 2 A.M. in Little America
"Kalfus is one of contemporary literature's best-kept secrets. He's a writer's writer through and through, but with 2 A.M. in Little America, he's poised to make a major crossover into the mainstream . . . Kalfus explores powerful questions about tribalization, alienation, and exile."—Esquire, "Best Books of Spring 2022"
“2 A.M. in Little America belongs among the year’s biggest hits. … it’s also a humbling glimpse of the circumstances millions of refugees are actually facing — a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God experience that shouldn’t be necessary to evoke empathy but certainly maximizes it.”— Arianna Rebolini, Vulture, “Best Books of 2022”
“From the undersung Kalfus, another tonally intricate triumph, this one about the bewilderment, alienation, and sheer strangeness of being a refugee . . . A strange, highly compelling tale about what happens when American privilege and insulation get turned inside out.”—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
“Ken Kalfus is American literature’s best-kept secret: his ideas are weird, his writing is limber, his ironic eye is gimlet, and yet no one seems to talk about him. Maybe that will change with [2 A.M. in Little America] . . . I’ve been waiting for a new novel from him since 2013’s insane, high-concept Equilateral, and I can’t wait to dig in.”—Literary Hub, “Most Anticipated Books of 2022”
"As it progresses, [this] tale becomes a potent warning about the consequences of ideological fervor. Heartbreaking and sobering, the dystopian novel 2 A.M. in Little America has the makings of a modern classic."—Foreword Reviews, Starred Review
“Kalfus returns with a subtly provocative dystopian story . . . Part of the thrill of Kalfus’s engrossing story is in how he pieces together the details of his near-future world . . . [2 A.M. in Little America] takes hold on the reader.”—Publishers Weekly
“A work of art [that] looks further ahead, responding to our present moment by imagining a possible future.”—Colorado Review of Books