Were there any particular books, music, films, or anything else that inspired or informed Ohio?
I’m very bad at this question, panic, and answer it differently every time. Like I think saying Bruce Springsteen and Toni Morrison is not innacurate, but neither is Quentin Tarantino and Dead Prez or Edward Hopper and the poet Lisa Wells. It’s not that one seeks to be influenced but that pieces of art and reportage and the irreducibly bizarre experience of being alive act upon your central vision at all times in ways you can never predict or understand.
Can you talk about what you’re working on now? Do you think you’ll ever return to the characters of Ohio or the town of New Canaan?
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’m in this place right now, with a book that, no matter what happens with sales or reviews and all that other glitter, is something I’m deeply proud of, that has this team of incredible people behind it and who believe in it. I don’t want to take any of that for granted.
If you had to name a single emotion or feeling that you feel drives Ohio, what would it be? What overarching feeling do you want to leave readers with after they finish the book? What do you want them to take away?
The interaction between the writer and the reader is the mystical, ethereal, inexplicable place, right? Like I know what I think is in my book and what it should be evoking and how it should be read, but as with every piece of literature, the reader will bring his or her own hopes, biases, determinations, and dogmas to it. Like I can say that it’s a novel about love and loss and war and recession and addiction and ecology and religion and trauma and hope in the dark, but I’m not sure that means much except to taint that inexplicable encounter. Hell, I’m not even sure authors should answer questions about their novels! It breaks the Spell, even if just by a sliver of a degree. Mostly, I want people to close the book and say what all authors want to hear, which is, “Damn. I would throw my grandmother out a window to get an advance copy of whatever this guy writes next.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STEPHEN MARKLEY is an author, screenwriter, journalist, and a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Markley’s previous books include the memoir Publish This Book: The Unbelievable True Story of How I Wrote, Sold, and Published This Very Book, and the travelogue Tales of Iceland. He lives in Los Angeles.
NONFICTION BY STEPHEN MARKLEY
Publish This Book
Tales of Iceland
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Copyright
Simon & Schuster
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Stephen Markley
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition August 2018
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Jacket design by Matt Dorfman
Jacket photograph by Harlan Erskine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5011-7447-6
ISBN 978-1-5011-7449-0 (ebook)