Empire City: A Novel
Written by Matt Gallagher
Narrated by Hillary Huber, Prentice Onayemi and Timothy Andrés Pabon
3/5
()
About this audiobook
“A brilliant and daring novel. Gallagher’s prose is sharp, energetic and witty, his characters are fiercely alive, and the cracked vision of America he creates is a monstrous thing of beauty.” —Phil Klay, award-winning author of Redeployment
The author of the “urgent and deeply moving” (The New York Times) Youngblood returns with this bold and provocative novel following a group of super-powered soldiers and civilians as they navigate an imperial America on the precipice of a major upheaval—for fans of The Fortress of Solitude and The Plot Against America.
Thirty years after its great triumph in Vietnam, the United States has again become mired in an endless foreign war overseas. Stories of super soldiers known as the Volunteers tuck in little American boys and girls every night. Yet domestic politics are aflame. Violent protests erupt throughout the nation; an ex-military watchdog group clashes with police while radical terrorists threaten to expose government experiments within the veteran rehabilitation colonies.
Halfway between war and peace, the Volunteers find themselves waiting for orders in the vast American city-state, Empire City. There they encounter a small group of civilians who know the truth about their powers, including Sebastian Rios, a young bureaucrat wrestling with survivor guilt, and Mia Tucker, a wounded army pilot-turned-Wall Street banker. Meanwhile, Jean-Jacques Saint-Preux, a Haitian-American Volunteer from the International Legion, decides he’ll do whatever it takes to return to the front lines.
Through it all, a controversial retired general emerges as a frontrunner in the presidential campaign, promising to save the country from itself. Her election would mean unprecedented military control over the country, with promises of security and stability—but at what cost?
Featuring Gallagher’s “vital” (The Washington Post), “evocative” (The Wall Street Journal) prose, Empire City is a rousing vision of an alternate—yet all too familiar—America on the brink.
Matt Gallagher
Matt Gallagher is a US Army veteran and the author of four books, including the novels Youngblood and Daybreak. His work has appeared in Esquire, ESPN, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Wired, among other places. A graduate of Wake Forest and Columbia, he is the recipient of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellowship, a Sewanee Writers’ Conference Fellowship, and was selected as the 2022 Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum Writer-in-Residence. He lives with his family in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
More audiobooks from Matt Gallagher
Youngblood: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daybreak: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Empire City
Related audiobooks
Soldier in Paradise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rizzo's War Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bloodland: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Triggerfish: A Crime Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrouble No Man: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fibber McGee & Molly - Volume 7: Fire Alarm Box & Making a Vase Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Black Jackals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pandora's Legion: Harold Coyle's Strategic Solutions, Inc. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Assault by Fire Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Groovin': Horses, Hopes, and Slippery Slopes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChipless Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Kill Box Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSafe: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shock Factor: American Snipers in the War on Terror Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Believer: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trapped Behind Nazi Lines: The Story of the U.S. Army Air Force 807th Medical Evacuation Squadron Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Coldest Night Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nickel Plated Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hold Fast: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow the Hell Will Start Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Heavy Duty People Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1945: The Year That Made Modern Canada Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDRUDEN [Dramatized Adaptation] Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Detail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsiders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBack to the Dirt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGhostriders 1968-1975: "Mors De Caelis" Combat History of the AC-130 Spectre Gunship, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAustralian Heist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dave Dawson on Guadalcanal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Fiction For You
The Alchemist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Song of Achilles: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House in the Cerulean Sea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Picture of Dorian Gray: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Yellowface: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hunger Games Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Remarkably Bright Creatures: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: A Hunger Games Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Parable of the Sower Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tom Lake: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Name of the Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Left Hand of Darkness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stardust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Five Years: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anxious People: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Measure: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hate U Give Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Their Eyes Were Watching God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Empire City
3 ratings1 review
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5This novel could be half as long and would make a better graphic novel. The story doesn't really become interesting until chapter 19 when the obvious conspiracy becomes exposed to the characters. The author doesn't have the facility with language to address the high ideas they are trying to explore. This could have been an interesting alternate history or dystopian fiction but it only reaches the level of a middle class superhero story.