Ohio follows four high school classmates who cross paths in their hometown on a random night 10 years after graduation. The book is told from multiple points of view, and rather than using frequent point-of-view shifts, Markley gives each character a long section of the book. Details surface and resurface to form a clear picture by the end.

I found much of this book uncomfortable. Most of the characters aren’t successful by typical standards. Many were successful — i.e. attractive and popular — in high school but now lead lives no one would envy. Many people who grew up in small towns will relate. Ohio captures the nostalgia, regression, and sometimes depression that comes with a visit to one’s hometown and high school friends.

Markley could’ve gone all-in on this aspect of the story: the characters’ journeys, and the effects this town had on those trajectories. Instead, the book is billed — and at least partially written — as a political statement about towns like New Canaan, Ohio in the year 2018. The subtle power of this statement is lost when Markley uses his fiction, especially character monologues, as political essay.

At the end, I felt bummed to leave New Canaan and its characters behind. The plot wanders here and there. Markley indulges in long tangents to explore issues more relevant to the current point-of-view character than the plot as a whole. To read this book is to spy on its characters’ lives more than it is to experience a cohesive story. The end crept up on me.

Despite its length, Ohio hooked me in more and more as I read it. Each character’s section felt unique and genuine. I appreciated that not all the primary characters received their own point of view on the page. This gave me time to get to know the point of view characters more intimately, and thus get invested in their lives.

So -- to read or not to read? Ohio is long, especially for a debut novel. It can also get very wordy and overwritten at times. Not all the characters are likeable. Some do terrible things on purpose, others by accident. If you’re looking for quick or plot-heavy read, this is not for you. If you’re seeking literary fiction with challenging characters, this is one to read.

Thank you Net Gallery and Simon Shuster for allowing me to read Ohio by Stephen Markley. Mr. Markley did a fantastic job with this one and I believe this is his first book. Please write more.

This is a story about friends Bill, Tina, Stacey, and Dan. In this book the story jumps back n forth from high school to present day. As they meet up they learn fates of high school friends, some who died in Afghanistan, some who survived, some who went crazy, deaths, you get the idea.

I loved this book other than the graphic sex and horror of war. This is well written with lovable characters in New Canaan, Ohio. This whole body of this novel is so good, so interesting whether haunting, funny, shocking. Some of the friends click and some are out for revenge. This book talks a lot about war, drugs, love lost and revenge. I recommend this mystery with as in the synopsis a shocking climax. I'm so glad I requested Ohio from Net Gallery. This may be a long book but it's oh oh oh so gooooooood. You will be turning these pages.

Thanks again Cherie'

This is a big book- maybe too big. There is a back story and reunion and an unveiling of long held secrets. It is both a great description of life in a small town, but sometimes more description than moving the story along.
I liked it and didn't like it, it took a while to really get going with it, but there were some satisfying parts.
Try it.

This new millennium has been a rough one for America. Just one year in and a few men with boxcutters wounded us. We realized the oceans did not make us invulnerable. Our reaction was malpractice and we have not recovered. The most powerful and costly military in human history is mired in an endless war with impoverished people using improvised weapons. Unable to win a clear victory, our impotence is exposed. Our once vibrant economy has been hollowed out along with our institutions and infrastructure. The recession erased the accumulated wealth of generations of middle-class families. Corporate control of government has left ordinary Americans struggling and disillusioned. Ridden with anxiety they self-medicate with meth, crack, and heroin. The bonds of community have been eroded by the cults of the prosperity gospel and self-help–atomizing doctrines of alienation and anomie. Those of us who came of age before 2000 remember a very different country. In Ohio, Stephen Markley composes a literary symphony to the generation who came of age as America began to fail.

Ohio begins with a parade to honor Rick Brinklan, the local hero who died in the war. This short prelude is a poetic introduction to the town of New Canaan (The Cane) and its people. It reminded me of “The Things They Carried,” the incomparable short story by Tim O’Brien with the short sentences propulsively driving the details of the people and the place. In the prelude, Markley warns us his story will take us for a ride, “It’s hard to say where any of this ends or how it ever began, because what you eventually learn is that there is no such thing as linear.”

The heart of the Ohio symphony is the four long narrative movements that tell the stories of Bill Ashcroft, the disillusioned activist silencing his demons with alcohol and pills; Stacey Moore, the lesbian fundamentalist apostate longing for her first love Lisa Han whose passion for life runs deep through the book; Dan Eaton, the romantic wounded by endless war and lost love; and Tina Ross, a struggling WalMart worker tortured by memories of the past. They weave memories of high school with the present as they travel to New Canaan from their individual exile.

Their coming home is not a reunion, it’s a syzygy, a conjunction of three or more celestial bodies in orbit of New Canaan. They scattered after graduation and while their lives still orbit New Canaan from very different distances, it’s just synchronicity that brings them into alignment. But what beautiful synchronicity.

Ohio ends with a coda that expands on a motif that appeared in every movement, the local folklore, a legend they all discount. It all brings us to “that eternal moment the prophets all gossip about: when you see the whole span of yourself, how astonishing and alive you were.” It is a devasting conclusion to this great opus.

I read 200 or more good books a year and I am confident Ohio will be the best book I read this year. I am pretty sure it will fit comfortably into the list of the 100 best books in my lifetime and I read 200 or more books a year. Markley captures the zeitgeist of America, the fears and hopes, the diverging passions, and the dramatic cultural changes in his characters’ narratives. It is one of those sprawling books that takes us everywhere and brings us back home, exhausted and devastated by the pain and loss–the diminishment of hope, but also invigorated by the love, strength, and humanity.

I was initially drawn to Ohio by its cover. The lighting reminded me of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” which signaled a humane sensibility and at its core, Ohio is humane, filled with compassion for its people. Or as Stacey Moore realized, “How quickly contempt can dissipate when faced with the pathetic humanness of another person. You see inside them for even the briefest moment and suddenly empathy blows through. A dark sky cleared by a hard rain.”

Ohio is beautifully written. I suppose some people will think it is over-written. Sometimes the words come together with such deliberate care that I stopped simply to savor the composition. I am one of those who is happy to be interrupted in my progress through a story to savor how its words come together. If you have ever lived where snow lasted for months, the descriptive perfection of “scabs of melting snow” will ring true. The writing is often visually beautiful, “He could see for a hundred miles in every direction, from the burlap plains to the peaks and ridges that looked like bones breaking through the skin of the earth.” More than anything, though, Markley’s writing is muscular. It is active with strong and specific verbs. I love how he uses verbs as in when Ashcroft recalls his high school friends and “what a web of truly vexing remembrance these aging boys had constellated within him.” Wow!

There is this sweet sadness when I finish a book as powerful as Ohio. The pleasure of reading is tempered by the knowledge I will never discover it for the first time again. That moment of surprise that feels like I have struck a vein of pure gold is replaced by remembrance. I envy those who will soon be reading Ohio and their thrill of discovery.

Ohio will be released August 21st. I received advance reading copies from the publisher through NetGalley and Shelf Awareness. Why both? I entered the Shelf Awareness, but thought I was unlikely to win, so I requested at NetGalley and I was lucky because this book is going to be on my all-time favorites list for a long time.

Ohio at Simon & Schuster
Stephen Markley author site
Walter Benjamin on “The Concept of History” (The essay Dan Eaton quotes.”

I was given an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

I took turns enjoying and hating this book. It really does a wonderful job of evoking how miserable small towns can be and what happens to people who stick around past the expiration date. However it would just wallow in this intense dudeliness, where there would be passages describing the bodies and sexualities of young girls from a completely male-gaze perspective with intermittent attempts to writefrom the girls point of you in the ways that just seems completely flat and dehumanized. Many male writers struggle to capture the interiors of women, this guy doesn’t even try. The women in this book our intern the hot evil blonde, the hot sex-mad Asian girl, the popular blonde turned lesbian, and the hot Christian girl who has been filmed being assaulted by friends of the male protagonists- The main protagonist lack of emotion towards this is meant to steam artistically jaded, but it just comes off as sleazy. I don’t think the writer fully understands that he is describing rape- It’s not that the narrators are unreliable – I really don’t think that the writer understands that part fully. This attempt to capture methed-out midwestern Gothic really is just a unknowing testament to all the problems of the #metoo era. Depressing. Makes me not want to talk to dudes for a good long time

A sprawling storyline, covering numerous characters over a couple of decades. There are mysteries and secrets here, and some satisfying and unexpected resolutions.

At times the digressions felt too forced and a bit too long--the present-day story was compelling, and that's what I wanted to return to sooner. An impressive debut.

The biggest problem I had with this book was that it started off so slow and uninteresting that it sold itself short. The prelude is hard to follow, and the full weight and ideas behind it don't reveal themselves until a hundred or so pages later; and then Bill's section (really its own novella, as each character's section is) is confusing and boring, featuring the least likeable of the four narrators to get things going. Sure, his ideas about his hometown and his politics and his aimlessness and his struggles are setting the foundation for everyone else we are introduced to, but I was put off by the style and characterization right away, so much so that I almost stopped reading. Thankfully, I didn't, because Stacey's section and those that followed were much stronger, with better, more concise writing and even some semblance of a plot.

Overall, I ended up really liking about half this book.

Ohio by Stephen Markley was such an unexpected read. .This is a book that I have already started to read again. During the first chapter I was thinking i would never complete this story but once i committed to it I was hooked. These characters are all so real and likable even at their worst moments. These people are bound together in friendships that are dysfunctional, loving, real and tragic. A work of fiction, this could actually be any town USA and any people from the past or present. Teenage lives are so inexplicable these days and the author sheds some light onto some of the problems kids face. Where is the line between reality and fantasy? I feel as though it blurs more every decade. Couple the world events of the last decade with teenage idealism throw in some politics and you touch the surface of what this novel is about but it is also so much more. I think it would be so amazing to hear high school age reader respective's on this novel.

Between Little Fires Everywhere, The Comedown, and Ohio, I'm on a streak of reading books set in Ohio. This is a debut novel and the premise grabbed me: former classmates come back to their hometown in northeastern Ohio, each with their own demons. This novel is dark. There's a bit of a mystery layered under social commentary, and I did enjoy the author's viewpoint. The setting really came to life- and it made me understand how tempting yet difficult it might be to walk away from ones' hometown. I thought the characters were so believable, and perhaps, this might be what made it not such a joy to read. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I have trouble with books that are too dark and that bring me too far into reality. Still, this book was incredibly authentic and well done, and the characters will stick with me. I just wouldn't say that I'd like to visit them again.

I was given an advanced copy of this title in exchange for an honest review. This book was so very well written. It captivated me the entire time!

I didn't finish this book, and that's very rare for me.

From the beginning, reading this book was difficult. The author uses very descriptive language, with some sentences going on for half a page or more. Despite the style, I kept reading, hoping the storyline or characters would be engaging, even though the writing style was not.

Unfortunately, none of the characters are likable, and I just couldn't continue in this book that seemed mostly about drugs and sex and reminiscing about high school and "better days".

Real. Dark but so real. The generation depicted in this novel have truly inherited an evil, dark land. War, recession, opiates, suicide, addiction, anxiety, social media, it all contributes. This book should be required reading. It's not a novel, my mistake, it's literature.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is gritty and, at times, disturbing. Despite this, the author also captures the beauty and value of life. The structure allows the reader to follow four different lives, and then deftly intertwines them in an ending that surprises, even when you see what's coming.

Ohio was a refreshing read after finishing many thrillers. Markley provides a unique critique on society and highlights an often overlooked part of America. While this novel is lengthy, the payoff is worth the time dedicated to it.

This is a very sad book but thankfully fiction although these stories have a lot truth in them for many people I am sure.. Well written stories about how someone whose life had such promise and fizzles into nothing. It is a hard book to read due to the awful stories but also a hard book to put down. The last story about Tina was tough due to all her potential being snuffed out by this overbearing football player boyfriend.
Thank you Simon and Shuster and Netgalley for the ARC for my honest review.

This isn't my normal type of book. I am more into a mystery or legal thriller. This book was not a mystery, but it was mysterious! It drew you in and kept building. It got you involved in the changes along the Rust Belt and how perspectives can change as one ages and experience other places.

I enjoyed this book a great deal and recommend it?

I requested to review Ohio (thanks, NetGalley) due to excellent reviews it has been receiving online. It's a fiction book that sounded like it could be a companion piece to Hillbilly Elegy with its characters that are lower-class residents of the rural and fictional New Canaan, Ohio. The cover drew me in as well -- kind of haunting, isn't it?

The book is huge (500 pages) and is divided into four sections, one focusing on each of four characters who attended high school together in New Canaan and who are now 10 years post-high school. None are faring well.

My overriding thought as I read Ohio was -- are there really people out there who live this way? And by "this way," I mean constant cursing, sleeping with all different people, using drugs, drinking, plotting harm against others, feeling generally awful about the future of yourself, your town, and your country? The book was really depressing, because none of the characters were likeable, and they all seemed so bent on self-destruction. Nobody knew the Lord, and the only mentions He got were associated with the book's few peripheral Christian characters, who (of course) were all hypocritical and cardboard stereotypes. Talk about a downer!

The plot was confusing (the time frame jumps all over, from the current night to a few years before and after to back to high school to ... you get it). There were also many instances of pronoun confusion: "she told Bethany she could stop" -- um, who is the second "she" here? This happened over and over, unfortunately. Also, I found it difficult to keep the characters straight (all the boys were football players who tended to blend for me). But, Ohio definitely had things going for it. Namely, Stephen Markley's writing. He really is talented, and I highlighted many passages.

...that odd midwestern temperature where the remnants of winter kept stealing day after day of spring.
...what you eventually learn is that there is no such thing as linear. There is only this wild, (beep) flamethrower of a collective dream in which we were all born and traveled and died.
One spent so much time looking at the Botoxed and surgery-perfected visages of movie stars and TV personalities that it was sometimes jarring to just see what an average sixty-something woman, trampled by time and disappointment, actually looked like.
Bill had never actually met a person to whom he did not enjoy ranting.
As we all know, the way memory works is that the sweep of your life gets explicated by a handful of specific moments, and these totems then stand as narrative.
Bill sat on a blue couch and felt parts of the fabric that had turned stiff from long-ago spills never cleaned. He could see the little black pocks from dropped cigarettes.
She marveled at the power the American high school experience holds on the imagination.
That's how teenagedness works: everyone lives in a bubble of their own terrifying insecurities oblivious to the possibility that so does everyone else.
How quickly contempt can dissipate when faced with the pathetic humanness of another person. You see inside them for even the briefest moment and suddenly empathy blows through. A dark sky cleared by a hard rain.
When you reach your late twenties, you notice your peers beginning to go one way or the other. Some retain their youth effortlessly, others begin to take on time like water gushing into a breach in the hull.
He's my tribe. Gotta defend the tribe. Everyone's friends as kids. You don't know what makes you different yet.

Honestly, as I read this book my motherly side came out and I really hoped that it wasn't somewhat autobiographical for the author, Stephen Markley, who looks pretty young in photos. He's a talented writer and I do hope he can find hope and happiness as his life progresses.

Stephen Markley's Ohio is a gripping debut novel. Exploring themes that are currently burying the Rust Belt - recession, war, racial tension, political partisanship (to name a few) - four high school friends are reunited in their hometown New Canaan on one fateful night.

This is not a brief novel, but it is a purposeful one. The interweaving stories function on both a micro-level to explore the individual characters, but also on a macro-level to explore a deeper societal commentary. New Canaan is not a land of proverbial milk and honey. It's a land left shattered by the turbulence of the world around it, just as the individuals have themselves been battered.

Ohio is a meandering story about classmates in a small town and the different paths their lives take. It’s grim, topical, and brutal.

Fans of The Gunners who want a darker version might like Ohio.

This story wasn’t for me. The tone at the beginning is very different from the rest of book and because of this it took a long time to feel connected with any characters. The writing had difficulty finding its footing. Some metaphors were so random it was distracting. The story and particularly the foreshadowing were too heavy handed for my taste. With that said, I think the author was ambitious and I’m sure my harsh critique will be in the minority.

Thank you Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of Ohio.

I have finished 3 of the 4 stories, and it was a struggle. Still a bit undecided on the writing style, as sometimes it gets tedious when everything within sight is described. Character development is excellent, and the characters come alive and are very realistic. However, I cannot finish this book. It is so culturally relevant as the topics in this book are the headlines of today. But it is so very dark, so very dreary, so very wretched, so very hopeless, that I could not continue.