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Ohio by stephen markley
Ohio by stephen markley









ohio by stephen markley

Novels that simultaneously attempt to explicate political history and plumb the human condition are liable to succeed at neither, but Stephen Markley’s exuberant embrace of such risk is laudable in itself. Markley can’t resist using his characters as mouthpieces. the determination to create an explosive powerhouse of a book emanates from every page here. But for all its genuinely absorbing qualities, Ohio retains a whiff of calculation. The diverse trajectories of these young people provide the author an arsenal of cultural signifiers with which to mine his fictional landscape, as well as the opportunity to expound on contemporary politics, religion, sex, drugs, literature, music and much else. His set pieces are strong, from a second Capitol Hill insurrection to. There’s the Great Recession, the flight of manufacturing, the ravages of addiction, sexual violence-the full smorgasbord of American tragedy. As in Markley’s acclaimed debut, Ohio (also encyclopedic), this feel for the hardships of his characters is unerring. every one of this socially representative cast of characters is broken the only variety is by what. Before the evening is through, these narratives converge masterfully to reveal a mystery so dark and shocking it will take your breath away.A prehistory of now, Markley’s bruising novel chronicles a decade in which those in the sinking parts of our nation began looking for anyone to blame and anything to relieve the pain of loss. Set over the course of a single evening, Ohio toggles between the perspectives of these unforgettable characters as they unearth dark secrets, revisit old regrets and uncover-and compound-bitter betrayals. There's Bill Ashcraft, a passionate, drug-abusing young activist whose flailing ambitions have taken him from Cambodia to Zuccotti Park to post-BP New Orleans, and now back home with a mysterious package strapped to the undercarriage of his truck Stacey Moore, a doctoral candidate reluctantly confronting her family and the mother of her best friend and first love, whose disappearance spurs the mystery at the heart of the novel Dan Eaton, a shy veteran of three tours in Iraq, home for a dinner date with the high school sweetheart he's tried desperately to forget and the beautiful, fragile Tina Ross, whose rendezvous with the washed-up captain of the football team triggers the novel's shocking climax.

ohio by stephen markley

One sweltering night in 2013, four former high school classmates converge on their hometown in northeastern Ohio. "A book that has stayed with me ever since I put it down." -Seth Meyers, host of Late Night with Seth Meyers " descendent of the Dickensian 'social novel' by way of Jonathan Franzen: epic fiction that lays bare contemporary culture clashes, showing us who we are and how we got here." - O, The Oprah Magazine "A wild, angry, and devastating masterpiece of a book." -NPR earnestly ambitious debut." - The New York Times Book Review











Ohio by stephen markley