To begin, a quick word of thanks to both Simon & Shuster, the publisher, as well as netgalley.com for allowing me a chance to have an advanced reading of this novel.

I initially had troubles getting into the story. I really wasn't sure how this novel would play out, but I am awfully glad I stuck with it.

The novel began with a homecoming parade for a fallen Marine at his hometown. After an anti-climactic start, the novel picked up speed as to how seven former students at a local high school have moved on in the next ten years of post-high school life.

The novel really kept my attention and was well-written. The way in which the author tied-in snippets of these seven character's high school past and tied them into their lives today, was well-done. To add the disappointment, despair, and ultimately the deaths of many of the characters in this novel made it a good read. By the end of the novel, I was happy to have gotten an opportunity to read this - very well-written, and truly an intriguing plot.

Stephen Markley’s first fiction book, OHIO, is definitely not for the faint of heart. Having written previous non-fiction books, Markley undertakes an ambitious project writing about a rural, Northeaster, Ohio town suffering from the Great Recession, the opioid crisis and the after-effects of 9/11.
OHIO centers around the story of four high school friends who are reunited a decade after their graduation. It also circles around the story of one of those friends who was killed in Iraq. In fact, the entire beginning of the book is one long running commentary on the funeral parade for this man which occurs months after his actual burial, and which features an empty casket on loan from Wal Mart. There were many part of this exegesis that reminded me of Garrison Keillor and his Tales of Lake Wobegon. The writing flows with excess and verbiage that is both descriptive and, well, over-the-top. To a certain extent, though not as talented, it also reminds of William Faulkner who could describe a scene to death.
After this opening finally ends, Markley presents us with characters that are quite nearly a stereotype for small, Midwestern, rural towns. I should know, I live in one and I’ve known many from the area from which Markley is drawing his inspiration. In fact, Markley was reared in such a small town very much like the one he is describing – but he has been living in L.A. for  many years.
OHIO is an examination of the fervor  that occurred in many small towns after the attacks on the World Trade Center. Smelling blood, military recruiters swarmed into these towns whipped up “patriotism” like a spell across the land. Those who were poor, bored or looking for a way out of these towns, eagerly bought the lies that these recruiters were dishing out like candy. As a result, the Midwest now if faced with higher numbers of veteran homelessness, drug addition to the crisis point and crime, which is needed to feed their addictions.
This is a very dark, very descriptive – overly so – account of war, drugs, addiction and despair.
However, while I like the premise of the book, my criticism is two-fold.  Markley claims that the book is an accurate description of the war battles and recruitment during this time – he also admits that he “once was very anti-war.” His anti-war sentiments don’t come through for me in OHIO. His remarks about why he is not as adamantly “anti-war,” disturb me on a very deep level. Americans only now are beginning to look at 9/11 as “history” rather than current events.  Any time an author writes about it, their own biases and leanings are revealed. The fact is, many – too many – young men were lied to, sold a bill of goods that were rotten and the “war in Iraq” was nothing except a military exercise to build the American Empire. You can not talk about the “rust belt” of America without directly talking about the massive loss of jobs, the cut back in education funding, the lack of medical treatment – ALL courtesy of the American government. The darkness here, in my mid-west, is very real. The opioid crisis is staggering. But Markley’s views are merely more fiction added to the mix, militarily accurate according to the recruiters with whom he spoke, but we all know how truthful they can be.  For the record, I’m the wife of COL (ret) so I’m very familiar with the military, the war and the lies that were told after 9/11.
Secondly, one complaint that I have regarding Southern writers is that they use thirty words to describe what could be brilliantly written in ten. Markley writes more like a southern writer than one from the mid-west where words never are wasted and verbosity is, quite nearly, considered a sin. This book is too long, too drawn out, too much of everything that is not quality. Readers who think that the book is dark would see a more fitting picture of the Rust Belt if they didn’t have to wade through the unnecessary muck. I wanted to scream: “edit, Edit, EDIT.” Sadly, there was none.
If you want to read an astounding account of what reality is like in a rural rust belt town, I suggest instead that you read “Fast Falls the Night” by Julia Keller. It also is a very disturbing read but one based on fact, expertly written and staggering in its accurate  description of what it really is like to live in such a town as mine.
OHIO was given to me by #Netgalley in exchange for a review of the book.

4.5 Stars

”Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

“Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows”
--Everybody Knows, Leonard Cohen, Songwriters: Leonard Cohen / Sharon Robinson

Unrelenting pain, broken people, a country torn apart by recession and an act of violence against America, people everywhere hurting, the opiod crisis, wars, and the damage they invoke on those fighting in them, who carry that damage with them after they’ve returned home to this small town in northeastern Ohio they refer to as “The Cane.”

There are four who return there the summer of 2013, each having lived all of their years with this country in a state of war, with recession destroying what was once the town they lived and loved in. They have memories of those years, and they are not always particularly fond ones, although there is still an abundance of nostalgia for this place, it is riddled with the pain of the scars that they carry, and yet it is still a part of them. Home.

This story begins with the prelude, with a funeral procession carrying an empty coffin (loaned by Walmart), draped with an American flag is being carried on a flatbed trailer down the street when the breeze went from calm to that high, almost whistling shriek, carrying the stars and stripes off in a frenzy of gusts and swirls until the knobby contorted branch managed to capture it.

This small town was America, as red, white and blue on this day as any other, with small flags carefully positioned every fifteen feet more than a mile leading up to the town square. Children walked with small flags in their grasp, and flags waved from the backs of bikes.

Regrets and secrets are carried on the wind, but never leave them, everywhere they look they are reminded of memories loaded with shame, humiliation, resentment, rage, ugliness and a vague wistfulness for something that never was, for them. A promise of a life with more, and a need to hold someone, something accountable.

This is a beautifully written, if very bleak, story about the towns, cities, and people left behind, marginalized, after everything collapsed. When your life, the life you knew, is ripped away leaving only a shell of what you knew, despair, anger, and resentment fills in the empty spaces. When that becomes your everyday life, it isn’t easy to live with when every day is filled with despair. On some level you must rail against the injustice of it all, or just fold, but even that doesn’t last long until it’s replaced by another emotion. Underneath this heartbreaking story is a commentary / critique of our current society, as viewed through the eyes of these people, this place, but it could be anyplace.

This was not an easy read for me, especially in the beginning, but I am so happy that I stuck with it. Before long, I didn’t want to put this down. I re-read sections over and over, not because I didn’t understand them, but because Markley writes so beautifully, and in his debut, Stephen Markley has written a story that will have you thinking about America’s present circumstances, about our towns and people.

A discerning and disturbing story of these seemingly discarded towns of America, through these unstable and tumultuous times. To borrow a thought, a phrase from Langston Hughes - This town, these towns, these cities, these people – they, too, sing America.

Pub Date: 21 AUG 2018


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Simon & Schuster

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read this debut novel. This book has been getting a lot of pre-publication buzz, and I think it’s deserved. It took me quite a while to get going on this. In fact, I started twice before getting very far, but the third time, it caught my attention. The author paints a grim but probably accurate picture of life in any depressed mid-west town, Ohio or not. The book is dark. There aren’t any happy characters or happy endings. I think where the author shines in the depictions of some of the characters, the way they think, they way they speak rang so true to life. Lastly, the author works in a mystery that is not so apparent at the start but eventually became the thing that pulled me along to the end. Overall. I recommend this but you may want to bookend it with some lighter fare.

There's been a lot of buzz about this novel, and I can now say it more than lives up to the hype. The writing is beautiful, and characters are complex and thoroughly drawn. This novel should also be on the must-read list for anyone wondering about the direction our country has taken in the past few years. It provides much insight on the state of the US today.

Although the book starts out slowly and is a bit difficult to read, STICK with it. This will be THE book of the year is my guess. Very well done.

Could not finish this one...perhaps, because it hit too close to home (literally, north eastern ohio native), but also because it was just a bit too melancholy. I'd give it a chance again, but for now it's a DNF.

Extraordinary first novel that belongs side by side with Hillbilly Elegy. The writing had me gobsmacked. I needed to close my eyes and reflect long and hard about some passages. Beautiful and frightening.

Markley's novel has 5 long chapters: each follows one character from high school and into the next 10 years. We get their perspectives, fears, desires, hopes, dreams. We see how they relate to their friend group and others in town. We see how they adapt to unexpected changes in their lives. And boy is this book a ride. It went somewhere I was not expecting at all based on the prelude, where we first meet some of the characters.

In this book Markley touches on small town life, life in the rust belt, high school, popularity, athletics, love, friendship, family, kindness, hope, dreams, hate, cruelty, 9/11, war, the opioid epidemic, and more.

I found this book to be an excellent read, it is buzz-worthy!

I almost didn't read it; the description just didn't hook me for some reason. Yet you start with four separate stories that blend into one and it becomes a mesmerizing sleep trap because y9ou have to finish this book. I'll tell you this, if Bruce Springsteen wrote a novel, it would be this one. This book reads like many of his great lyrics of the 80's, enjoy!

This book was a struggle to read from page 1. I had high hopes for this one, but from the beginning I felt I couldn’t engage with the characters. After page 20 I put the book down. This is rare for me to do.

really liked this book. easy read. great story and i loved the characters. good for any book club. will bring up good topics to discuss.

I’ll be honest - I stopped reading this about 10% of the way through. It just wasn’t pulling me in the way I had hoped. The writing itself was good - I just wasn’t connecting to the storyline and found myself getting easily distracted while reading.
I think part of the reason was that there is little to no dialogue for the first little while in the book, which tends to lose my attention because I get bored with non-stop narratives. So for those who DO enjoy lengthy narratives, I think thus would be rightup their alley. It just wasn’t for me.

“Do you ever review fiction?” my husband asked the other day. As a matter of fact, I do. It just seems to be an easier task to get hold of good non-fiction. There must be a LOT of reviewers vying for the approval lists for fiction titles. Sometimes, I get lucky. And sometimes, I get very lucky. “Ohio” is one of those latter instances of a lot of luck. I may be having a bear of a time finding employment, but at least the reading list stays interesting.

“Ohio” is the debut novel of author Stephen Markley, a man so mysterious that his biography contains less factual content than the first two sentences of this post. I would love to know why he decided to set his story in the fictional midwestern town of New Canaan (for fact lovers: there is a Canaan, Ohio, although I cannot say how much or if at all it has influenced the description of the setting in the book). I live only one state over, however, and many of the problems of the area more or less affectionately named “the Rust Belt”, like dying industry and shrinking agriculture, apply across the swath of the upper Midwest.

The novel drops us into a memorial parade for a young soldier, a son of New Canaan, killed in action only a handful of years after high school graduation. Ah, you think to yourself, this is about the dead kid! It could have been, but it isn’t. The next chapters introduce us to people from Rick’s circle, both close and not so close. As each character has his or her story told, the voice changes accordingly. If you are easily confused by storytelling techniques such as this, you’ve been warned. Aha!, you might exclaim, it’s about something that connects all these kids! Definitely warmer. There is indeed a common thread here, at first barely perceptible, but naggingly present, even if its true meaning is not revealed until much later.

There is also a character study here, although it’s not of people, it’s of a town. Sure, you nod, there are lots of points to New Canaan that I recognize. And you will, as I did, but again, don’t take things at face value here. This is not about The Town Next Door, so to speak, but goes much deeper. New Canaan is a place that breeds its own kind of horror and tragedy, and what will hook you in and make you stay with the narrative until its breathtaking conclusion is the realization that, perhaps, nobody who has spent any real time in this town gets away unscathed – not even minor characters.

Adjectives like “breathtaking,” “heartstopping,” and the ever-overused “stunning” give me goosebumps, and not for a good reason, but where “Ohio” is concerned, they are not only applicable but true. When I finished the book, I felt as if someone had clonked me in the head with a shovel: I was unable to do anything but sit there and breathe, until I had collected myself. That is why “Ohio” is hands down THE best novel I have read this year, and why you should not miss it when it comes out in August!

“Ohio” is published by Simon & Schuster. I received a free copy of this novel from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.

Markley’s thunderous debut is not to be missed. My thanks go to Simon and Schuster and Net Galley for the review copy, which I read free and early, but this is one of the rare times I can say that if I’d paid full hardcover price, it would have been worth it. This is the summer’s best fiction, and it’s available to the public August 21, 2018.

Our story is broken into a prelude and four additional parts, each assigned to a different protagonist, all of whom knew one another, traveling separately from four different directions; they were born during the great recession of the 1980s and graduated from New Canaan High in 2002, the first class to graduate after 9/11. We open with the funeral parade held for Rick Brinklan, the former football star killed in Iraq. His coffin is rented from Walmart and he isn’t in it; wind tears the flag off it and sends it out of reach to snag in the trees. The mood is set: each has returned to their tiny, depressed home town, New Canaan, Ohio, for a different purpose. The town and its population has been devastated economically by the failure of the auto industry:

“New Canaan had this look, like a magazine after it’s tossed on the fire, the way the pages blacken and curl as they begin to burn, but just before the flames take over.”

At the mention of football, I groan inwardly, fearing stereotypes of jocks and cheerleaders, but that’s not what happens here. Every character is developed so completely that I feel I would know them on the street; despite the similarity in age and ethnicity among nearly all of them, there is never a moment when I mix them up. And the characters that are remembered by all but are not present are as central to the story as those that are. As in life, there is no character that is completely lovable or benign; yet almost everyone is capable of some goodness and has worthwhile goals.

Families recall the closure of an industrial plant with the same gravity with which one would remember the death of a beloved family member; the loss has been life changing. Residents are reduced to jobs in retail sales and fast food, welfare, the drug trade, and military service due not to legal compulsion, but economic necessity. Everyone has suffered; Walmart alone has grown fatter and richer.

This is an epic story that has it all. We see the slide experienced by many of New Canaan’s own since their idealistic, spirited teenaged selves emerged from high school to a world less welcoming than they anticipated. One of the most poignant moments is an understated one in which Kaylyn dreams of going away to school in Toledo. This reviewer lived in Toledo during the time when these youngsters would have been born, and I am nearly undone by the notion that this place is the focus of one girl’s hopes and dreams, the goal she longs for so achingly that she is almost afraid to think of it lest it be snatched away.

Because much of each character’s internal monologue reaches back to adolescence, we revisit their high school years, but some of one person’s fondest recollections are later brought back in another character’s reminiscence as disappointing, even nightmarish. The tale is haunting in places, hilarious in others, but there is never a moment where the teen angst of the past is permitted to become a soap opera.

Side characters add to the book’s appeal. I love the way academics and teachers are depicted here. There’s also a bizarre yet strangely satisfying bar scene unlike any other.

Those in search of feel-good stories are out of luck here, but those that treasure sterling literary fiction need look no further. Markley has created a masterpiece, and I look forward to seeing what else he has in store for us.

Hard to believe this is a debut novel! Set in a small town in Ohio, the novel centers around four friends who initially return for a classmate's funeral. What follows is an examination of their lives--both past and present--that reveals memories that are bittersweet at best. Each has suffered love, loss, pain, and heartbreak. And although each has lived through different circumstances, we witness both the highs and the lows of mistakes made, decisions regretted, and lives restarted. At times it's a difficult read and painful to endure, but the writing is poignant and raw and cathartic at the end. So while it's not a great "beach" read, it is certainly worth the effort as its themes are universal and relevant!

Ohio begins with a funeral and ends in murder. What happens in between is as depressing as a high school reunion, but man, Stephen Markley’s writing elevates the wrist-slashing fatigue into a Stanley Kubrick-like, art-house style circa Clockwork Orange. Still, Ohio is 500-page work that feels like it takes all four years of the riding the after-activities bus route to read through.

Markley recounts the impromptu high school reunion of 2013 following the incredibly-pitiful-it’s-laughable funeral of fallen solider Rick Brinkland as told through the antics and mostly-troubled thoughts of four New Canaan alum, each getting a novella to tell their tales of woes: of trying to fit in, on being attracted to the wrong gal or guy, running away from responsibility, and the youthful persistence of taking the moral high road. After all, if Kevin Smith’s Clerks taught us anything, it’s that’s what high school is all about: algebra, bad lunch, and infidelity. Markley would add “with a ton of drugs” to that statement as apparently that’s all early 21st century kids in the Rust Belt seem to do. Ohio captures all of that and more. Sometimes, that’s too much.

Like its namesake river and the first ten years of the Columbus Blue Jackets’ existence, Ohio rambles on and becomes unwieldy. Markley’s accounts run so deep an Excel spreadsheet is needed to capture the dramatis personae, their nicknames, associates, sexual partners, and addiction of choice, because there is four years’ of catch up required for the reader while the story’s hook, that of the murder mystery, comes so late in the final act it’s nearly a post-credits zinger in a Marvel Studios film.

Aside from the back-and-forth storytelling told by a former basketball player, a beauty queen, a cheerleader, and a nerd, Markley builds a heavy universe, and one that is completely recognizable as anywhere in America and has the scars to prove it. Ohio may be depressing and fatalistic, but Markley’s craft brings a shine to this Shinola and casts a sense of importance to any of the fatalism plaguing fulfillment-seeking millennials. Unfortunately, this nine-course meal version of a history lesson suffers from distention well before any sort of a hopeful moral can be splashed back with Scotch.

Serious thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC. I just need a restorative nap and a mini-marathon of Teen Titans Go! for the laughs and I’ll be good to go.

"Ohio" is a beautifully written and compelling story of a group of friends from a small town in Ohio who came of age in the post-9/11 world. The novel opens with a prologue describing a parade honoring one member of the group who was killed in the war in Iraq. The prologue is followed by four chapters in which four characters tell their story. Each of whom the characters have struggled in their transition from high school to adulthood.

The novel examines how the early friendship of these characters has a profound and lasting effect on the lives of the characters. In some instances, the high school friendships are a lifeline for the characters. For others, the friendships are toxic and leave lasting damage.

"Ohio"is not an easy read. The small town that is the setting of the book is plagued with economic struggles and opiate abuse. There are brutal incidents of sexual abuse in the novel. Many of the characters are unlikeable. Some are downright evil. And the novel closes with a coda that is shocking and devastating.

But despite the bleak themes and often unlikeable characters, "Ohio" is a terrific read. The pacing is great. The plot is compelling, and the characters are well drawn. "Ohio" will stay with me for a long time. I expect this book will be short-listed for literary prizes this year. Highly recommended.

I don't want to get too wordy because it will give away plot points that are best left as surprises. I enjoyed the writing style and descriptions of the town. I liked the characterization displayed in this book. The tension built well and resulted in a satisfying end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC of this book in exchange for a honest review.

This is one of those books that’s going to take a few days to truly digest because it is very, very heavy. But it is also a very, very good book.

The story is basically about this group of friends growing up in the post 9/11 years and how they cope with the recession that followed and how their various relationships changed. The book is not your typical chapter; instead Markley writes from the perspective of one character for 75 pages and then switches to another character. Basically there are 4 or 5 different stories in this one book but they are all written so they seamlessly move the plot along. For some authors this could be a tricky way to tell a story but for this book it really works because the plotting can get really redundant but for Markley it worked.

The writing in this book was absolutely beautiful but it was also challenging. I found that if I wasn’t quite paying attention then I would have to reread a passage to get what he was saying because there were times he rambled and I probably got the dictionary out a handful of times to look up a word BUT none of this was enough to make me want to stop reading it.

So why only 4 stars? As I said before the book is heavy. I found that I couldn’t read the book for a long time because it just weighted on me emotionally. Books rarely make me cry but there were many times while reading this that I found myself wiping away tears. This is not a book that I would recommend to everyone. If you’re former active duty, a survivor of sexual assault, or a recovering addict this could be potentially triggering. It’s a great book I just advise caution before reading it.