Ohio - The Library of the Uncommons

No cover — Stephen Markley: Ohio (2018, Simon & Schuster)

496 pages

English language

Published Nov. 17, 2018 by Simon & Schuster.

ISBN:: 978-1-5011-7449-0

(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 …

"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 night in 2013, four former classmates converge on the rust belt town where they grew up, each of them with a mission, all of them haunted by regrets, secrets, lost loves. There's Bill Ashcraft, an alcoholic, drug-abusing activist, whose fruitless ambitions have taken him from Cambodia to Zuccotti Park to New Orleans, and now back to "The Cane" with a mysterious package strapped to the underside of his truck; Stacey Moore, a doctoral candidate reluctantly confronting the mother of her former lover; Dan Eaton, a shy veteran of three tours in Iraq, home for a dinner date with the high school sweetheart he's tried to forget; and the beautiful, fragile Tina Ross, whose rendezvous with the captain of the football team triggers the novel's shocking climax. At once a murder mystery and a social critique, Ohio ingeniously captures the fractured zeitgeist of a nation through the viewfinder of an embattled Midwestern town and offers a prescient vision for America at the dawn of a turbulent new age"--

"On one feverish, fateful summer night in 2013, four former classmates converge on the rustbelt town they grew up in--a region ravaged by the Great Recession, an opioid crisis, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--each of them with a mission, all of them haunted by regrets, secrets, losses and love"--

6 editions

M@ reviewed Ohio by Stephen Markley

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 …

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 -- has a decidedly different voice, which fits their respective POV characters like a glove. But fortunately, the author drops his perspective into the book, 4% of the way in, with this glorious glistening gemstone:


He didn’t believe in God, fate, or coincidence, but that left precious little to actually explain anything, and sometimes the right asteroid just strikes the right planet so the lizards lose a turn, and the motherfucking monkeys take over.

Wow, right?

Subjects

Ohio, fiction
Fiction, coming of age