Description: On one fateful summer night in 2013, four former classmates converge on the rust belt town where they grew up, each of them with a mission, all of them haunted by regrets, secrets, lost loves. There's Bill Ashcraft, an alcoholic, drug-abusing activist, whose fruitless ambitions have taken him from Cambodia to Zuccotti Park to New Orleans, and now back to 'The Cane' with a mysterious package strapped to the underside of his truck; Stacey Moore, a doctoral candidate reluctantly confronting the mother of her former lover; Dan Eaton, a shy veteran of three tours in Iraq, home for a dinner date with the high school sweetheart he's tried to forget; and the beautiful, fragile Tina Ross, whose rendezvous with the captain of the football team triggers the novel's shocking climax.
Brief description: Stephen Markley is the acclaimed author of Ohio, which NPR called a "masterpiece," and The Deluge, which Stephen King dubbed "a modern classic". A graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Markley's other books include the memoir Publish This Book and the travelogue Tales of Iceland.
Review Quotes:
"Stephen Markley is an expert cartographer of the American Rust Belt and the haunted landscapes of his characters' interiors. A fast-moving and devastating debut."
--Karen Russell, New York Times bestselling author "Karen Russell, New York Times bestselling author"