āExtraordinary...beautifully precise...[an] earnestly ambitious debut.ā āThe New York Times Book Review
āA wild, angry, and devastating masterpiece of a book.ā āNPR
ā[A] descendent of the Dickensian āsocial novelā by way of Jonathan Franzen: epic fiction that lays bare contemporary culture clashes, showing us who we are and how we got here.ā āO, The Oprah Magazine
āA book that has stayed with me ever since I put it down.ā āSeth Meyers, host of Late Night with Seth Meyers
One sweltering night in 2013, four former high school classmates converge on their hometown in northeastern Ohio.
Thereās Bill Ashcraft, a passionate, drug-abusing young activist whose flailing ambitions have taken him from Cambodia to Zuccotti Park to post-BP New Orleans, and now back home with a mysterious package strapped to the undercarriage of his truck; Stacey Moore, a doctoral candidate reluctantly confronting her family and the mother of her best friend and first love, whose disappearance spurs the mystery at the heart of the novel; Dan Eaton, a shy veteran of three tours in Iraq, home for a dinner date with the high school sweetheart heās tried desperately to forget; and the beautiful, fragile Tina Ross, whose rendezvous with the washed-up captain of the football team triggers the novelās shocking climax.
Set over the course of a single evening, Ohio toggles between the perspectives of these unforgettable characters as they unearth dark secrets, revisit old regrets and uncoverāand compoundābitter betrayals. Before the evening is through, these narratives converge masterfully to reveal a mystery so dark and shocking it will take your breath away.