If you're the type of person who thinks action and excitement only takes place in big cities, you haven't let Stephen Markley lead you through the small town of New Canaan, Ohio. You're in for a big surprise or two.
We follow four main characters as they find themselves reconnected to their hometown. Bill Aschcraft has a mysterious package duct taped to his torso and a belly sloshing full of alcohol and pills. Stacey Moore is reluctantly returning home for a dreaded meeting with her ex-girlfriend's mother. Dan Eaton is home from the war in Iraq to meet up with a former flame and Tina Ross is back with a Plan-with-a-capital-P up her sleeve that no one - including the reader - sees coming.
The format switches back and forth from present-ish day (2013) and reflects back to the characters' high school days in the early 2000s. They all know one another from growing up in the same fading town - or at least they think they do - but what a living hell high school can be and everyone's been affected in different ways now that they're in their twenties. Some are frantically grasping back to when they peaked in high school; others are clawing ahead trying to distance themselves as far away as they can from their supposed glory days which were, in fact, anything but.
Though time and distance have separated some of them, their lives are all still tethered in different ways and they find their ways back to each other via dark alleys and crappy bars. The small town rumor mill is in full swing and still can't be avoided. No one seems to have gotten through their youth untouched and while some tried to toss their former selves to the wind, they now find themselves back right where they began. They're pregnant, high, drunk, abused, heartbroken, ashamed, coping, untouchable. They're all looking for an escape from their messed up lives. They're all back in New Canaan and it seems the only way to move forward is to go back and deal with the past.
Judge the cover: 5/5
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