5/28/2023 0 Comments Ohio by Stephen MarkleyThe similarities of the two books converge at points beyond intention and promotional angle but also in a thinly - or, in Markley’s case, barely - concealed contempt for their subjects. Vance’s controversial memoir “ Hillbilly Elegy” - a big book that can explain “what the fuck happened to this country,” to borrow words from the blurb that Charles Bock provides. It seemingly aspires to become a fictional analog to J.D. “Ohio’s” story develops over the course of one summer night in 2013, with plenty of flashbacks to happier days, and it is likely that Markley began writing it before November of 2016. They are diabetic, nicotine addicted, and enraged over their empty pockets and the burial of their loved ones who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its beleaguered inhabitants are now universally miserable. New Canaan was once a thriving community of middle class stability, familial bonds and neighborhood solidarity, but as its manufacturing base crumbled, with company after company moving operations overseas or automating production, so too did the small town’s quality of life perish. Set in a blown out, working class town in Ohio – the fictional New Canaan – it is the literary version of the countless and redundant reports that major newspapers competed to run in the months subsequent to Trump’s presidential victory. “Ohio,” the debut novel by Stephen Markley, might as well have a picture of Trump’s gruesome face on the cover.
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