Ohio

a novel

No cover

Stephen Markley: Ohio (2018)

484 pages

English language

Published Nov. 17, 2018

ISBN:
978-1-5011-7447-6
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OCLC Number:
1006812584

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5 stars (1 review)

"The debut of a major talent; a lyrical and emotional novel set in an archetypal small town in northeastern Ohio--a region ravaged by the Great Recession, an opioid crisis, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--depicting one feverish, fateful summer night in 2013 when four former classmates converge on their hometown, each with a mission, all haunted by the ghosts of their shared histories. Since the turn of the century, a generation has come of age knowing only war, recession, political gridlock, racial hostility, and a simmering fear of environmental calamity. In the country's forgotten pockets, where industry long ago fled, where foreclosures, Walmarts, and opiates riddle the land, death rates for rural whites have skyrocketed, fueled by suicide, addiction and a rampant sense of marginalization and disillusionment. This is the world the characters in Stephen Markley's brilliant debut novel, Ohio, inherit. This is New Canaan. On one fateful summer …

6 editions

Review of 'Ohio' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This book is a collaboration between Melpomene, the muse of Tragedy, and Erato, the muse of lyric poetry. Melpomene is definitely driving -- the central theme of this novel is (mostly) horrible things
happening to (mostly) horrible people. But she hands the keys over to Erato for some periodic joyrides. The end result is that I highlighted 30 sections of text, and I likely would have done more except that I was driving too hard for the end to notice any of the lyrical poetry that I'd enjoyed prior.


Specifically, we begin on a dark country road with a small pickup truck, the frame shuddering, the gas tank empty, hurtling through the night from origins yet unknown.



The other big thing I noticed about this book is that each of the four major sections -- written in omniscient third person around the perspective of one of the (mostly) horrible people …

Subjects

  • Interpersonal relations
  • Life change events
  • City and town life
  • Homecoming
  • Fiction

Places

  • Ohio