King of the Mississippi: A Novel - Hardcover

"I have trouble expressing the sheer joy of reading King of the Mississippi. Not only is this book funny, but it is serious funny, angry funny, insightful funny, wise funny, and just plain old-fashioned funny funny. Stanley Elkin and Joseph Heller -- let me introduce you to Mike Freedman."
--TIM O'BRIEN, National Book Award-winning author of Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried

"Mike Freedman is a brilliant satirist. King of the Mississippi is the best comic novel since Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim."
--PHILIPP MEYER, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Son and American Rust

"Mike Freedman's King of the Mississippi takes us on a wild and raucous ride through the "homefront" of contemporary America and the foreign front of "over there," shredding--to hilarious and usually wincing effect--the prevailing pieties of corporate and military culture. Freedman has a keen eye for the damning detail, a quick ear for the unctuous con, which makes him an ideal satirist/realist for our highly disturbed age. Joseph Heller, Terry Southern, Hunter S. Thompson, George Saunders, say hello to the newest member of the American Jesters club."
--BEN FOUNTAIN, author of National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

"In King of the Mississippi, Mike Freedman launches a surgical strike against the old school, old boy network of good ole boys: those masters of the universe who brought us Enron, Lehman Brothers, and (cough cough) President Donald Trump. Freedman's satirical takedown of white male privilege, 21st Century Kleptocracy, and our forever war is a deeply entertaining tour of duty through America's heart of darkness. From the boardroom to the battlefield, Freedman calls out the narcs and the poseurs, the warmongers who never leave the wire and have no skin in the game. King of the Mississippi is a comic cri de coeur and Mike Freedman the disarming leader of a dazzling new literary insurgency."
--AMBER DERMONT, author of the New York Times bestselling The Starboard Sea

"In this hysterical novel, Mike Freedman takes on the current and very serious military-civilian divide in a world-class satire from which no side emerges unscathed. Read it; laugh and learn."
--KARL MARLANTES, author of the New York Times bestselling Matterhorn and What It Is Like To Go To War

"The points of reference in America's literary heritage for Mike Freedman's King of the Mississippi are in some ways clear and compelling, from Twain to Heller and beyond. But in a very real way they do Freedman an injustice. Reading this book I found all the comparisons falling quickly away. He is an American original. King of the Mississippi weds dark hilarity and deep seriousness in ways that are, it seems to me, uniquely born from this apocalyptic era we have now entered. This is a remarkable novel from a truly important young American writer."
--ROBERT OLEN BUTLER, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain and Perfume River

"King of the Mississippi is a terrific war novel set in the aftermath of Iraq. Distinguish yourself and buy it now."
--WINSTON GROOM, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Forrest Gump and El Paso

"Mike Freedman writes with a distinct sensibility. His new novel King of the Mississippi throbs with humor and American exuberance."
--HA JIN, National Book Award-winning author of Waiting and The Banished Immortal

"There are echoes of Kingsley Amis and Joseph Heller in this remarkable novel, but Mike Freedman --BRIAN VAN REET, author of Spoils

MIKE FREEDMAN was born and raised in Houston. He volunteered for the infantry after 9/11, later serving three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan in the U.S. Army Special Forces. He received his MBA from Rice University. He is the author of School Board.