![]() ![]() Simmering throughout the story are casual mentions of “the murder that never was,” laughed about at parties and in school. He can’t bring himself to attend the service but visits Rick’s grave when he returns to New Canaan years later. In fact, when the book opens at the memorial for Rick in New Canaan, Bill is nowhere to be found. Throughout the story, Bill, an antiwar activist who never forgave Rick for becoming a soldier, is torn by his conflicted feelings about the friendship. Rick, whose patriotism pushed him to enlist after 9/11, is killed in the war, and Ben, a creative spirit who becomes a singer/songwriter, dies of an opiate overdose early on in the book. Of the three best friends described in the book-Bill Ashcraft, Rick Brinklin, and Ben Harrington-only Ashcraft is still alive by the end. It can be a joyful, thrilling, and meaningful experience, so I tried to capture those contradictions.”Ī theme running through Ohio is the primal relationships formed in high school. On the other hand, I had to understand that combat binds people in ways that are not typically accessible to civilians. My aim was to never, ever glorify what’s gone on, to not write a single word that lazily accepts the bromides and clichés, and also to portray the grinding nature of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. When asked if Ohio is an antiwar book, Markley says, “That’s a difficult question. “But you have to hold these two things in your mind: you really hate what’s happening, but at the same time, these are my friends-this is my generation going over there doing this.” ![]() Markley says he was once passionately against America’s military involvement in the Middle East. I interviewed the friends of the guys who were killed, and that will stay with me until I die.” He also had an Army veteran fact-check the battle scenes. The worst of the violent scenes in the war I had some familiarity with, based on things that happened to people from my hometown. “Obviously I care a lot about what’s going to come out in the book,” Markley says. There are brutal passages in Ohio that linger long after the book ends. The deaths of his comrades are common occurrences during Dan’s service Markley writes about these deaths so authentically, he could almost have been there fighting alongside Dan. One of the characters in Ohio, Dan Eaton, serves three tours in the military and only quits after losing an eye in a skirmish. Many people I knew signed up.” Markley did not, but he has friends and acquaintances who did and were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were military recruiters everywhere, and everyone was talking to them about enlisting. “I was a senior in high school when 9/11 happened,” he says. Vernon, Ohio, and now lives in Los Angeles. ![]()
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