On one pivotal summer night in 2013, four former classmates converge on the rust belt town where they grew up, each of them with a mission. This is the world the characters in Stephen Markley’s brilliant debut novel, Ohio, inherit.

In the country’s forgotten pockets, where foreclosures, Walmarts, and opiates riddle the land, death rates for rural whites have skyrocketed. 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. Most importantly, Markley is a gorgeous and gifted writer he masterfully weaves together the narratives of his protagonists through a variety of perspectives and timelines that culminate in a breathtaking ending that will blow you sideways.Come hear from the bestselling author of one of the Bookworm’s best books of 2018! Remarkably, Markley began OHIO as backward-looking exploration of the impact that 9/11 and the resulting events had on his generation but instead has created a story that feels almost prophetic in its exploration of the forces that created our current political climate. Markley’s observations of this embattled time are beautifully told with incredible characters and utterly stunning prose. The deceptive magnet of New Canaan, Ohio, will pull them back for one long, fateful summer night. Ten years after graduation, four former high school classmates converge on their hometown, each still haunted by old regrets, secrets, and lost loves. This critically acclaimed “remarkable debut novel…a wild, angry and devastating masterpiece of a book” (NPR) is a lyrical, emotional, and “genuinely absorbing” (Washington Post) story set in northeastern Ohio depicting one feverish, fateful summer night when as four former classmates return to their hometown, all haunted by the ghosts of their shared histories.Ī Book Expo Buzz Panel Selection**Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick**A Best Book of Summer: Time Stephen Markley has constructed an unforgettable portrait of rural American life in the 21st century, for a generation that inherited a recession and watched 9/11 and never-ending wars unfold from their classrooms, against the backdrop of the Rust Belt, a region ravaged by foreclosures and opioid addiction. OHIO is a thrilling and lyrical novel that marks the debut of a major voice in American fiction.

Ohio by Stephen Markley