Ohio by Stephen Markley

c.2018, Simon & Schuster

$27/$36 Canada

485 pages

That kid you knew in high school – the one so far out of your clique? You thought about him the other day, nothing important. A few of his friends were your friends but, mostly, he was just some kid.

Still, the memory of him popped into your head and you wondered what ever happened to him. And in Ohio by Stephen Markley, that kid thinks about you, too.

Bill Ashcroft had no plans to ever come back to New Canaan, Ohio. He didn’t have plans not to, either. Wherever the mood took him was okay – Thailand, New Orleans – as long as there was booze and drugs, he was good.

He went wherever life was interesting and this trip would be that: A girl he slept with in high school asked him to bring a tightly-wrapped brick of undefined something back to their hometown. He was once in love with her, and he could easily fall back there while he was in New Canaan.

The visit would also allow him to see old buddies, and to find out if anybody’d heard from Lisa.

Stacey Moore didn’t want to meet with Lisa’s mother. It had been a decade since Beverly had found Stacey and Lisa together in bed, which was just before graduation, when Lisa disappeared.

Few had heard from her since then, except for occasional emails and postcards from Vietnam or Bangkok or somewhere overseas. She said she wasn’t coming back. Stacey had put the pieces of her heart together since then (though she still loved Lisa), but Lisa’s mother still mourned Lisa’s loss and nursed her regrets.

Dan Eaton was also home in New Canaan, because he wanted closure. After multiple tours of duty in Iraq and a Purple Heart, life had changed but he needed to know that the girl he’d spent his school years crushing on was, indeed, happy without him.

Bill mentioned Lisa, but Dan hadn’t heard from her, either, which didn’t really matter. He had a dinner date scheduled with Hailey, and Lisa might as well have been a million miles away.

The first thing you’re going to notice when you pick up Ohio is its heft. It’s a big book, almost too big, and there are times when your mind may wander. And yet, its characters are magnificent, including two who never really show up.

Author Stephen Markley gives them and others depth and brittleness as he writes with razor-precision about being an adult, looking back at the angst and hormones of teenage-hood, terrified that those really were the Best Days of Your Life.

That’s a feeling of nostalgia, but maybe not a comfortable one. It’s similar to experiencing the awkwardness you get when you visit your old high school today: It’s familiar but, more than anything, it reminds you sharply that high school was impossibly, cringingly hard.

Yes, this book is a tad over-wordy but it’ll drag you into the story faster than you can spell the title. From there, for sweeping novel lovers, Ohio just clicks.